The Environmental Women in Action for Development (EWAD) an implementing partner of the Work No Childs Business project (WNCB)in Busia district Uganda, have trained over 30 (male & female) teachers and School managers how to use ICT tools to teach pupils with hope that such exposure will improve the quality of learning and boost their performance in school. This training was with the with Funding support Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Stop Child Labour Coalition with Hivos as the Lead for implementation of WNCB.
The ICT training which is part of the E learning support project introduced by EWAD with support from WNCB is benefiting learners and teachers in three government aided schools in three sub- counties in Busia district. They include Tiira Primary School in Buteba sub-county, Busitema primary school in Busitema sub-county and Amonikakine primary School in Tiira Town council.
To ensure community ownership and create sustainable impact, the chairpersons of Parents/Teachers Association (PTA) of the respective schools have also been trained on the different modalities of E learning with hope that they will support their respective school leadership, parents and teachers in this campaign to enhance the traditional learning methods with E-learning techniques for quality teaching and uptake of technologies in rural schools. This is also a partly contribution towards increasing school enrolment and retentions as one of the measures within the effort to stop child labour and ensuring that children enjoy their rights to quality education. This is also based on the notion that children are attracted by E-learning class session by the trained teachers.
While commissioning the E learning training held at Busitema primary school in Busia district, EWAD executive director Margaret Tuhumwire explained that E learning will simplify knowledge transfer to pupils and increase their stay in school. “Children are often attracted to gadgets, I am sure that when our teachers begin teaching children using these gadgets, drop out rate will be reduced. Demonstration of certain topics like science will be simplified since teachers will be able to access open source information online in circumstances where schools don’t have laboratories or libraries. She further appealed to school management committees to ensure proper custody and use of these E learning equipment.
he teachers have been capacitated how to navigate the internet to access academic resources like www.youtube.com, www.wikipedia.com, Emails, and www.google.com which they can use to demonstrate and impart knowledge in a more simplified, visual way, said Margaret. They have also been taught how to conduct online classes using zoom, Microsoft teams, google meet among other online platforms.
Worldwide, ICTs have a great potential for improving the quality of education. Moreover, education is presumed to cause socio-economic development. Indeed empirical studies confirm that education can make an important economic contribution (Kozman, 2005). Thus by improving the quality of education, ICT is thought to contribute to social and economic development.
The potential impact of ICT on social, economic and educational transformation in Uganda was greatly witnessed during the 2020-22 COVID 19 schools lockdown where the well-to-do schools continued with online classes while the poor did not learn for two years hence negatively impacting on the children.
The United Nations and the World Bank both advocate the use of ICT to support the development of the world’s poorest countries (Kozman, 2008, p.1083). In this regard, a World Bank report notes that ICT can increase access to education through distance learning, enable a knowledge network for students, train teachers and broaden the availability of quality education materials (p.1084).
“Therefore, since teacher preparation remains central to the implementation of better pedagogical practices using ICT, EWAD will continue equipping teachers with ICT skills and this training is just a timely contribution for us,” said Margaret. EWAD recently donated an assortment of ICT equipment for E Learning to schools. These Included, A laptop, a Solar System with a power inverters, a smart screen, a smart phone and internet routers and all related accessories to each school, worth over 50 million Shillings.
