Education For All In Uganda

Early childhood occurs before the age of eight years and it is a period where a child goes through the most rapid phase of growth and development. These years are very critical because the brains of the child develop so fast than at any point of their lives. The foundations for their social skills, self-esteem, moral outlook, perception of the world as well as cognitive development all happen at this stage. Therefore, early childhood education is encouraged for the healthy development and nurturing of these important foundations into a child.

Around the world, children have stayed home from school to help reduce the spread of coronavirus but this has been disruptive especially in the lives of young scholars in the kindergarten section. With schools closed and children staying at home, it is easy to slip into the summer vacation mindset. It is therefore to keep children engaged in a healthy way while out of schools and classroom environment. Teachers, school leaders, and caregivers around the world have been grappling with how best to support students during COVID-19.

At Another Hope children's Ministries, we looked for different ways of engaging the students, and among them are availing study materials like textbooks, printed questions, and answer work materials and getting study materials from the children’s schools. However, this was not enough for kindergarten children because they are young children not like other students, their needs are unique.

Arrangements were made and we got a visiting teacher specifically to handle the kindergarten children to help them study during the lockdown. A total number of 12 children on Another Hope Children’s Ministries sponsorship program have been engaged by the visiting teacher at the children’s home and for the community children, meeting the teacher at her home through this period with study items according to each child’s class. This has helped the children remain active about studies and not forgetting what they had studied since this has been a long period of time out of school.

ACHIEVEMENTS

I am 7 years old. My school is Jayden’s Kinder and Daycare. When we stayed home for a long time, I thought I was done with school and it was very hard for me to study even when our Aunt tried to tell us to study in the library. I am happy that our teacher started coming to teach us and now I know I am not yet done with studies and I have been reminded what I learned by the teacher.

Links:

• Another Hope Children's ministries website
• facebook page

MANAGING EDUCATION DURING COVID-19

 There are many negative effects which arose to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe and most of these were as a result of the measures put in place by different states to curb the spread of the pandemic. Among these was the closure of schools and higher institutions across the global. Currently approximately 1.725 billion learners worldwide are affected due to school closures and about 15 million learners in Uganda have not been in school for the past two months in response to the measures to limit the spread of the pandemic.

However, education is an undeniable right of children in times of stability and crisis. It is therefore a responsibility of the caregivers (parents or guardians) to ensure that children enjoy their right to education even during this period of the pandemic. Another Hope children's Ministries, we take care of children in different classes at different levels of education. Among them are kindergarten children, primary, secondary and vocational school. There are sixteen children at the children’s home Another Hope Children’s Ministries runs who are out of school due to the closure but we have taken measures to manage the education of the children until the opening of schools and higher institutions of learning.

Among the measures taken to manage the education of the children are ensuring the Library is in proper order to avail a conducive learning environment and learning materials like pens, pencils, and colors. We also encouraged the children in higher classes/ levels to help their sisters and brothers in lower classes and the staff members to help monitor the children by checking the work. We have also availed remedial work from trusted websites which we print and deliver hard copies to the children at different levels. Some of the children were given trial exercises from their respective schools and we have ensured they do these exercises.

 BENEFICIARY A

Beneficiary A is a senior three student at Light College Katikamu and she is 17 years old. The beneficiary expressed her gratitude for the way they have been helped to acquire education even during this hard situation. She has managed to have time for her studies and she has learned more through using the reading materials given to her and there has been more time to revise what was taught at school because of the conducive environment. The textbooks bought for the children as requested have also helped her to manage education during the pandemic.

Links:

• Another Hope Children's Ministries website