IICD supported programme: Content Development at National Teachers Colleges - Uganda

The goal of this content development project is to use computers and internet to develop educational materials for secondary schools and National Teachers Colleges (NTCs) throughout Uganda. Its main focus is on developing educational content. For example, it aims to create over 20 modules for all ordinary level subjects and place them on CD-ROMs so that they can be used by other National Teacher Colleges (NTCs) and secondary schools.

To make the project sustainable, large numbers of Kyambogo university staff as well as staff from the NTCs are being trained on how to work with computers and internet to look at, create and share educational materials. The goal is to make abridged versions of the finished products available as printed pamphlets, via a website, on CD-ROMs, and through intranet web servers. The content development programme started in 2005, has 2000 users and can potentially reach 40,000 students and teachers throughout Uganda.

As a result of a series of financial and organisational problems the project ground to a halt in 2004. However, in June 2005 it was restarted and steady progress has been made since then. Lecturers from two National Teachers’ Colleges (the National Teachers’ College in Mubende and the National Teachers’ College in Nagongera) received basic training in ICTs in August 2005 and attended a course entitled ‘How to use ICTs in Education in September. In addition to this, two training modules have also been produced since the fourth quarter of 2005 (the overall target is to produce 20 modules for all O-level subjects and place them on CD-ROMs so that they can be used by other national teacher colleges and secondary schools.

The government of Uganda places a high premium on education. The extent of this commitment is reflected in its ambitious Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy launched in 1996. This policy aims to provide every child in Uganda with at least seven years of education by having the government shoulder the cost of sending up to four children per family to school. As a result, primary school enrolments have doubled in the last decade. Secondary schools now have to accommodate the dramatic increase in student numbers. New and innovative ways to improve the quality of both the teaching staff and educational materials will therefore have to be found, fast. The digital education content project can certainly help in this area by using computers and internet to: enhance teacher-training programmes; give teachers new teaching skills to liven up classroom teaching; and produce low-cost, up-to-date educational materials that can be easily duplicated, updated and revised.

Read more about IICD’s Uganda Country Programme.

The overall objective is to enhance the production of digital educational content

Specific short-term objectives of the project are:

• Develop and digitise more than 20 courses at Kyambogo University
• Develop high quality teaching modules to be used at NTCs and secondary schools throughout Uganda
• Provide quality control checks on the educational content developed
• Devise a good dissemination system for the digital content developed

This project has great potential, especially in view of the Ministry of Education and Sports’ enthusiasm for Information and Communication Technology (ICT): the Ministry sent out a circular to all secondary schools insisting that they should set aside part of their 2005 budget to provide their teachers with basic computer and internet training. The project uses these trainings to raise teaching standards and to produce and disseminate affordable, innovative educational materials with content that has local relevance. It is expected that in the long term over 7 million students and teachers will benefit from this project as indicated in the list of main target groups below:

• Kyambogo University: 8,000 students (primary target group), 2,000 distance learning students, and 500 staff members;
• NTCs: 13,000 staff members and students;
• Primary schools: 5,000,000 students and 108,844 teachers.

Read more about IICD’s approach towards education.

The project was seriously derailed in 2004 due to internal problems at Kyambogo University. A restart was made at the end of 2005 (the funds were put back in project account and we made a complete restart)

Lecturers from two National Teachers’ Colleges (the National Teachers’ College in Mubende and the National Teachers’ College in Nagongera) received basic training in ICTs in August 2005 and attended a course entitled ‘How to use ICTs in Education' in September. In addition to this, two training modules have also been produced since Q4 2005 (the overall target is to produce 20 modules for all O-level subjects and place them on CD-ROMs so that they can be used by other NTCs and secondary schools.  

See also http://www.capacity.org/en/content/download/3656/54913/file/issue+10.pdf