Mark Kirumira
11 April 2008
Kampala — Ms Namirembe Bitamazire, the minister of Education and Sports, has commended Daily Monitor for supporting the education sector in Uganda through its Young Readers Programme, Newspapers in Education (NIE).
"I have learnt a lot about Daily Monitor's NIE programme and I am glad we are bridging the literacy and numeracy gap," said Ms Bitamazire at the a breakfast meeting to mark the first anniversary of the Newspapers in Education project at the Sheraon Kampala Hotel yesterday. The comments were made after the audience were taken through a slide show.
She said the government was committed to providing quality and relevant education to the nation and that is why it has set up programmes to benefit even the most disadvantaged regions of Uganda.
"We are trying to make sure that everyone benefits from education and that's why we set up programmes like the Alternative Basic Education for Karamoja and Basic Education for the Urban Poor in addition to putting up infrastructure," Ms Bitamazire said.
She warned that newspapers shouldn't replace the traditional textbooks in classrooms but rather supplement them since many of the textbooks have never been revised by the National Curriculum Development Centre to address current trends.
Monitor Publications Limited (MPL) launched the NiE brand last March under the umbrella of World Association of Newspapers. Currently, about 100,000 pupils have directly benefited courtesy of sponsors and a further one million in one way or another.
Daily Monitor was the first newspaper in East and Central Africa to run such a programme. A similar programme runs in South Africa, Ghana and Liberia.
The Managing Director, Mr Tom Mshindi said the newspaper was committed to being a key partner in education.
"Daily Monitor supports the Ministry of Education strategies of thematic learning and will continue working together to see what to do to improve it," Mr Mshindi said, adding, "We calmly call upon all responsible companies and partners in education to join us in this journey."
He thanked the sponsors and urged more to join.
Over the last year, Celtel Uganda, Barclays Bank, SNV, Crown Beverages, National Insurance Corporation, National Social Security Fund and Bidco have made it possible for hundreds of thousands of early primary school-going children in 330 schools allover the country to use Daily Monitor in their classes throughout the school term.
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