Education in Uganda

In the last five days I have visited 19 schools around Kibale National Park in western Uganda. About half of the schools are currently in our program and the others we wanted to see as comparisons. All but one were primary (elementary) schools.

The conditions vary among the schools but we saw many schools with dirt floors, most did not have widows, many were falling down, some were just pavilions not buildings at all, and a few that had mud and thatch roof structures for classrooms. It was not uncommon to see a class with over 100 students and one teacher! In fact we saw many classes with 150 students. You can see it would be difficult to get any teaching and learning done in a class like that. Desks were in short supply, so often we saw nine students crammed in one bench meant for three. In some classes there were no desks or benches so children sat on the floor. Resources are slim- many school “libraries” were in fact simply a cabinet in the headmaster’s office. There are no computer labs, teacher assistants, playgrounds, very few educational supplies, media centers, school busses, auditoriums, etc...- All things we take for granted in American elementary schools. My task is too train teachers in hands on ways of teaching conservation education which will be a challenge with such large class sizes and limited resources.

The students were wonderful and seem so eager to learn. The older classes asked us questions like “What do we eat in America?”, “Are there blacks there?”, “Can we give them a scholarship?’, “What could we do so they weren’t so poor?” Many of the students walk miles each morning and evening to get to school. At some of the schools, hundreds of students would spill out of their classes and surround us as they had never seen a Mzugna (white person) before.

The Ugandan education system has many challenges facing it. As we toured the schools the headmasters shared with us their concerns that after p4 the number of girl students rapdleiy decreases as students get married early or are kept at home for domestic help.