Joseph Mallinga
1 October 2008
Mbale — The government will next month launch a Quality Education Initiative in a bid to improve the quality of education. Some 12 districts will be selected to pilot the project, the director of Education and sports in the Ministry of Education, Dr J.G Mbabazi, said.
Dr Mbabazi did not name the districts. "Under the project, the government will provide the selected districts with funding to build teachers' houses, laboratories, and other requirements in addition to funds to ensure close inspections for two years," Dr Mbabazi said.
"We are giving them all they need to improve," Dr Mbabazi said on Monday while responding to concerns from a Kenyan official at an international education conference on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for teachers held in at Mt. Elgon hotel.
Kenyan officials said although the government is boasting of high rates of school enrolment, not much has been done about the quality of the UPE products.
Ms Christine Ochero, an official working with the Kenyan Ministry of Education, expressed further concern about the strategies the government put in place to address the issue of girls school drops-outs, something she said is affecting ESD.
The three-days conference with the theme, 'preparing the youth to educate themselves for life,' attracted participants from Kenya, Tanzania, Korea, Germany and Uganda. It was organised by Unesco.
Dr Mbabazi, who earlier talked about ESD in Uganda, said negotiations between the government and the World Bank to avail funds to facilitate the project were on course.
"It is true, the quality of UPE has dropped but we are looking for means to improve the situation. We have already trained teachers to help improve the standards. We are also negotiating with the World Bank to see how we can access a loan to help provide infrastructures to accommodate the increasing numbers of UPE enrolment," Dr Mbabazi said.
Uganda's education system is such that all students pass irrespective of whether they have failed or not, explaining the poor education standards even at both secondary and university levels.
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