Africa-Press – Uganda. On July 30, several Ugandans celebrated the release of Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) results. In the end, everyone has to be productive in the real world. Of late, there is a profound mismatch between academic excellence and productivity in the practical world. What are we bringing to the table?
National Planning Authority (NPA) is advising the government to consider accelerated learning to fast track learning recovery. The basis for this is because all learners at all levels will be promoted to the next class. This means the teachers and learners will have to suck in new pressure, put in extra hours to cover lost time.
Learning on the go what was missed in the previous class and what the learners must learn in their current classes. This initiative must be implemented in a proper context with some questions in mind. How ready are the teachers especially those in rural areas? Will there be any form of orientation or motivation to have them engage another gear?The pandemic has put many teachers under so much stress. It is unlikely that teachers will return to class rooms inspired by the AstraZeneca vaccine jab. Many of them need psycho social support. Very little has been done in a charitable sense to support teachers during the pandemic.
Without question, this calls for parents to support teachers in a form that keeps them motivated. Maybe contributing an extra pay. But how many parents in rural areas can afford this? Clearly all government initiatives towards reopening schools should target the rural constituency. I am hoping that that the NPA remedial instruction strategy to help those children who have missed out on school to get back on track and reduce long-term learning losses will be supported by effort to measure students’ learning levels today and collect good quality data to inform classroom practices, as envisioned under the UNICEF, UNESCO, and World Bank’s Learning Data Compact.
This comes at a time when the government is set to pilot the parish development model. The parish chiefs will be key in getting this data and hopefully more attention will be put on early childhood learning. That is where the real crisis lies. In March 2020, National Planning Authority in collaboration with Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, UNICEF and Save the Children published a study “Planning For Increased Access To Early Childhood Care And Education” to inform NDP III. One of the key revelations was that besides inadequate human and financial resources for training ECCE caregivers, the current caregiver training system is highly varied without any standardized training curriculum, trainee entry requirements, assessment and certification among other findings.
According to the report, about 80 per cent of children aged 3-5 in Uganda do not have access to Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)-a key component of Early Childhood Development (ECD). This denies them an opportunity to reach their full potential and as a consequence risks the country’s desire to have an appropriately skilled, health and productive human capital as highlighted in the Uganda Vision 2040. This ECCE coverage is below the Sub-Saharan average of 34 per cent of the children aged 3-5 having access to ECCE. This is against the backdrop that Uganda is a signatory to a number of international conventions such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, Dakar Framework of Action, 1990 and the African Agenda 2063 that focus on expanding and improving comprehensive ECD. Whereas coverage is expanding, gaps remain that need urgent interventions
Author: Tom Magumba , [email protected]
