Teaching in Uganda is difficult
July, 2013. This year with a sizable donation from an anonymous donor, ten schools in the districts of Arua (near the northern border with Congo), and Soroti (centrally located) received book assistance. This brings the number of schools we have helped in Uganda, to 50! All books were ordered ahead of time so that they could be delivered during Vicky’s visit to the area. In every case, the school held an assembly and students, teachers and at times parents on the P.T.A. and local officials came to witness the handover of the textbooks. Speeches were made, songs were sung by the school children, and their National Anthem was sung. For some schools, students had never seen a white person before due to the remote locations. In all the schools, teachers and administration were overjoyed at having new books. Helping students to navigate through these challenges is vital for teachers, who have their hands full with their own troubles: class sizes of 80-100, not being paid for months by the government, being transferred from one school to another, and living with the same poverty as their students.
With this in mind, Turn the Page Uganda also hosted two dinners for fifty educators and local officials in both Arua and Soroti. The purpose was two-fold. First, to honor the educators for the hard work that they do, and tell them that we recognize that teachers are a powerful influence on the future of their students. Administrators and teachers set the stage for how a school will be viewed by their constituents. With a strong team in place, students understand that school is a place where learning can be achieved and their dreams for a better future can come true.
Our second goal was to bring people interested in Ugandan education together to have a common dialogue about how instruction is currently working in their schools, how the books they do have are being utilized, how the testing results were for this year, and what their worries are for the future about these issues. Finally, discussion led into plans for what could be done to lead teachers into having more success. By using a thinking routine from Harvard University, teachers were able to discuss in depth their personal viewpoints during the course of the evening. As an observer to this process, I was excited to see how eager the Ugandan teachers were to learn new “western methods” of brainstorming, working together in teams, wrestling with various opinions and selecting those that seemed to filter to the top as most important. Rotary members were included in Arua, so they would understand the plight of the teachers. Local educational officials were included in Soroti for the same reason.
