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 About |
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Title: EQOSE-SOMERO
Location:
Categories: Education
Human Rights
Status:
In Planning
Timeline:
November 1 08 to December 31 10
Description:
To achieve the short term objectives and consequently the long-term objectives, the following activities will be conducted; \\r\\n\\r\\ni). Introduce Career Guidance and Counseling in rural schools. \\r\\nii). Install Notice Boards on which reading materials ranging from current affairs to personal development will be periodically posted for students to use.\\r\\niii). Train at least two teachers from each beneficiary school in Guidance and Counseling to ensure effective implementation and sustainability of the programmes\\r\\niv). Carry out Intra and Inter – School Educational Competitions such as Debates, Essay writing Competitions, Quizzes & Brain Games.\\r\\nv). Introduce Debating Clubs, “Clean Teens” Clubs and Environmental Clubs\\r\\nvi). Show Educational Movies under the formed Clubs covering relevant themes
Background:
In Uganda’s rural areas, there are High Rates of Early School Drop Outs and rampant Teenage Pregnancies in primary and secondary schools. Teachers, Business men and Leaders have taken advantage of students, due to poverty and lack of information. The Girl Child being the most Vulnerable Group.\\r\\n\\r\\nFor many years, there has been a clear distinction between Rural Schools and Urban Schools, which has been treated as an acceptable norm by many. The urban schools (commonly known as Giant Schools) are well endowed with fully stocked libraries, laboratories, “well informed and exposed” teachers, PTAs that are financially strong, good facilities such as spacious classrooms, electricity, fresh water supply within the school; powerful Alumni Clubs, exposure to current affairs and the developed world through Newspapers, Television, Magazines, Newsletters; they have access to computers e.t.c; they have the capacity to organize educative and inspiring social events and tours among others.\\r\\nA typical Rural School on the other hand is characterized by the following;\\r\\na) No library\\r\\nb) No laboratory\\r\\nc) An Impoverished PTA\\r\\nd) Absentee teachers\\r\\ne) Poor infrastructure\\r\\nf) No Electricity and fresh water\\r\\ng) Limited space for reading\\r\\nh) No/limited access to current affairs\\r\\ni) Locked away from the “outside” world\\r\\nj) Alumni (OBs & OGs) dominated by dropouts/village drunkards, young parents, professionals by fate, the unemployed and underemployed among others.\\r\\nNB: Of late, Newspapers such as The New Vision and Daily Monitor have started running educational supplements to enable students increase their knowledge and chances of passing such as PASS PLE, PASS O-Level and PASS A-Level. These are very useful materials but rural students can hardly access them!\\r\\nThe rural students do not have the opportunity to even see a computer, although the world is rapidly advancing in technology and increasingly becoming computerized. In fact, the general feeling within the Rural students is that of Inferiority and lack of self confidence.\\r\\nThere is a geographical divide between Rural and Urban Schools and a Social Divide between Rural and Urban Students.\\r\\n\\r\\nEven with such inequality, at the end of the day, these students must seat the same National Examination (UNEB), which does not take into consideration the difference between rural and urban students or their learning environments. The examiners do not care about the conditions under which the rural students studied; neither do they care about their inferiority complex. In brief, there is no special treatment.\\r\\n\\r\\nTherefore, something must be done to emancipate the Rural Poor Students; otherwise, as things stand now, there are two different worlds, the world of the Rich Urban Exposed Students and that of the Poor Rural Unexposed Students. This division sadly extends into the Job Market! \\r\\n\\r\\nIn today’s Job Market, (Particularly Uganda), academic excellence is no longer in itself a pre-requisite for employment. There has been a shift to a new phenomenon of “whom do you know?” and sometimes “How much can you offer?” to get a Job! This has complicated life for many less privileged graduates and other qualified job seekers whose academic background is predominantly rural and do not have relatives and friends occupying influential positions. The main reason for this is that, such Job Seekers did not have a chance to meet “people who matter” as they studied at primary and secondary school and majority of the friends they made, either did not make it to a higher institution of learning, or are also still looking for Jobs to no avail. \\r\\n\\r\\nThe supply for labour / skilled man-power far exceeds the demand for it in Uganda’s Job Market today, yet more and more labour is in the pipeline (i.e. Nursery, Primary and Secondary Schools, both Rural and Urban). This makes the competition between Rural and Urban Students very Steep but in favor of the Urban Students at the end of the day. It is also obvious that a student in a “good” school (Urban) has more open chances of securing employment and /or obtaining assistance to create a Job because of the wide opportunity base, unlike the poor rural student whose entire family and friends are purely rural and equally poor. It is also true that those students in the rural schools are not there by choice but by fate, because all parents that are of medium income in those rural areas have taken their children to better schools for a better education, away from their home village. Where does this leave the Poor Rural Student?\\r\\n\\r\\nWhat does the future hold for the poor rural students, especially the girl child? Teenage pregnancies are dominant in rural schools, where male teachers, “village champions” and drunkards take advantage of the school girls. The girls are offered petty items like sweets, smearing jelly, cheap perfumes etc, and very little money in exchange for sex. \\r\\nSex education is not continuously accentuated in the rural schools because in most cases it is against tradition and culture to openly talk about sex related issues in front of children. It is especially so because majority of the teachers in such schools are natives and are part of the traditional beliefs and practices. This leaves the young girls ignorant of the dangers of premature sex such as acquiring STDs, STIs and UTIs.\\r\\nThere are also high rates of school drop outs in the rural areas due to lack of career guidance and general counseling among teenagers, especially during the adolescent stage, during selection of subjects while joining A-Level and as they chose courses to be pursued at Higher Institutions of Learning for a life-time career.\\r\\nTeachers (especially rural primary teachers) are among the lowest (if not the least) paid civil servants in Uganda because even their P.T.As are impoverished, yet these teachers are expected to deliver at the same rate with the urban teachers! These rural teachers spend more time in their gardens than at school because they have many unfulfilled necessity needs! The public perception of teachers (especially those from rural schools) is that they are poor. The word teacher is even used by some people as a metaphor for poverty!\\r\\n\\r\\nFinally, with the current population explosion, many private schools have come up to satisfy the demand for education. However, the schools that have emerged in rural areas are pathetic and lacking. Those that have all the facilities required to offer quality education are expensive and un affordable for the rural poor, while those that just have the basics such as class rooms and a space for assemblies are the ones available to the rural poor especially at O & A levels. Some of the schools are in existence without registration with the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) while others are registered but still do not meet the minimum standards to offer quality education.\\r\\n\\r\\nStatistics indicate that in 2007, there were 14,728 primary schools and 2,644 secondary schools in Uganda. The enrollment in primary schools was 7,537,000 students and 954,328 students in secondary schools. The pupil to teacher ratio went up from 48 to 57 in primary schools while in secondary schools it increased form 19 to 39 between 2006 and 2007. This was attributed to the increase in student enrollment coupled with a reduction in number of teachers employed over the same period. \\r\\nIt was also indicated that in rural areas, more students travel a distance of 1-3 km to get to school.
Objectives:
Long Term Objective;\\r\\ni). To narrow the wide gap between rural and urban schools\\r\\nii). To instill a new sense of direction among rural students to fit in today’s complex and highly competitive work world.\\r\\n\\r\\nShort Term Objectives;\\r\\ni). To enhance Academic Competence and Build Confidence among rural students in Budadiri East and West to compete favorably with their urban counterparts\\r\\nii). Introduce a new approach in delivering effective educational services in rural schools to help students in Budadiri East and West to maximize their full potential.
Milestones:
We held a peaceful walk/demonstration & presented a petition to the Minister of Education and Sports, Hon. Namirembe Bitamazire on 18th Novermber 2008 to draw government\\\'s attention to the inherent problems with Uganda\\\'s current education system, which has failed to embrace the dynamics of today\\\'s work world continuing to produce job seekers rather than job creators. Students are trained to look for white collar jobs! among others.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Director has also drawn the public\\\'s attention to the problem through several articles he published in the local media including the New Vision and Monitor Newspapers, plus commenting on several blogs on the internet.\\r\\nYou can find the articles by typing the name \\\"ISAAC WANASOLO\\\" in the Google search Engine for your information.\\r\\n\\r\\nWe opened our model rural resource center at our office in Bugujju Mukono where several youths of all ages freely access the few available reading materials.
Needs:
We need Used Books, Chairs, Book Shelves and Tables for setting up the CRCs, a Projector for presentations, Educational Movie Shows, Laptop Compute for presentations and field Information processing and storage, DVD/VCD Player For Educational Movie Shows (EMS), Public Address System For Debates, Quizzes, Brain Games, Youth Dialogues, and EMSs, Generator To provide power for the above activities in the rural areas, Stabilizer /Inverter Power regulation, Digital Camera Photographic Data Collection, Portable Platform For EMSs, Motorcycles To ease movement in remote areas among others.
Tags:
education, opportunities, school, academics, success, equal, rights, children, students, pupils, primary, secondary
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