News and Downloads

Trustees to Visit Kasese

Three trustees travelled to Kasese in late September to undertake a range of tasks:

• making a DVD of training with slates for use in the Kasese area.
• completing and distributing the slate training manual.
• exploring the possibility that tourists at the local QE2 safari park can be a source of funding for the project.
• gathering data to show the impact of the project on the attainment and progress of pupils.

New DVD of Kagando Primary School

We have received a new DVD of Kagando School from Helen and David Lyth based at Kagando Hospital. Helen is currently teaching at the school. We thank them for this lovely insight into school life. To see the new video of the school click here.

Good news: the four Hampshire schools which sent exchange teachers to Kasese School District have been successful in getting more funding to continue their links.

They will be developing curriculum links with their partner schools and we wish them all the best for next year.

The schools are:

• Wolverdene and Kings Somborne twinned with Ibanda and Kamaiba Schools respectively.

• Shakespeare Junior and Calmore Infants twinned with Kitalikibi and Kagando Schools respectively.

The first consignment of 10,000 individual blackboards (slates) supplied by Education Uganda arrived in Kasese early in 2010. Here we see them being distributed to primary school headteachers.

     

These slates were purchased in China from a source that supplies very large volumes to UNICEF. Hence the landed cost in Kasese was considerably cheaper than locally purchased slates. Education Uganda plans to supply a further 150,000 slates to Kasese District primary schools over the next three years.

We had a workshop for all the clergy and their spouses in the Diocese in March 2010 that we facilitated jointly. We trained them in the use of slates while demonstrating to them and we shared the importance of using slates in the teaching/learning process.

     

We did this because they are the immediate supervisors of all Church schools and some of them are chairpersons of school committees of some schools. They enjoyed the game and pledged to encourage teachers to use them.

'The University of Winchester recently hosted a professional seminar 'Education Partnerships in Uganda' at which the contributors were the members of this summer's project in Kasese. The work accomplished this summer both by Education Uganda and the University of Winchester was given a ringing endorsement by all present, and was seen as a very positive basis from which to move forward.

Guests included Her Excellency Joan K.N. Ryabyomere the Ugandan high Commissioner, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Winchester, pictured here with Chris Lloyd and John Wilkinson, Education Uganda trustees, Honor Houghton one of the senior lecturers from the university who went to Uganda, and several university's students who have travelled to Uganda on a range of projects.

We have just returned from a very successful trip to support the EU project. You will be pleased to know that as a result of individual contributions and fundraising from participants the whole trip drew less than £100 from EU’s working budget!

The team consisted of Chris Lloyd, chair of trustees, Marilyn James, and Hilary Powell all of whom had visited 2007, and: Alan Josling (trustee and EU treasurer), Sally Josling, Beth James, Ann Smyth Headteacher of Lockerley Primary School, Honor Houghton, Geoff Anderson, Jonathan Rooke lecturers from the University of Winchester. All were accommodated very successfully in Agape guesthouse, Kasese.

A report on the projects aims and conclusions along with some images from the trip may be found opposite under "Reports - Summer 2009" or by clicking here.

Education Uganda is continuing to fund chalk and slates for primary schools in the Kasese district. These much needed resources will enable Education Uganda's programme of introducing interactive teaching through the use of individual slates to be implemented more effectively. Click here to see photographs of the chalk and slates being enthusiastically received by a number of primary schools.

Thank to the generosity of Winchester University, Education Uganda was able to pass the sum of £1000 to Bwera Teachers Training College for the purchase of a generator and related equipment. The picture here shows Bishop Jackson handing over a cheque for the Ugandan Shillings equivalent of £1000 to the Deputy Principal of Bwera College.