Daily Monitor brings World Cup showpiece closer to pupils

Kampala

Primary School pupils are to read about the Fifa World Cup that starts on June 11 in South Africa through Daily Monitor Newspapers in Education programme. The World Cup project dubbed, “The World Football Reading Passport” is an educational editorial tool that uses football to encourage young people to learn about journalism, sports, geography, language and character.

The project will run for eight weeks starting in June. Pupils are expected to complete weekly assignments, ask teachers, parents and any adult to review their work. “If they (participants) are satisfied, they should sign the ‘visa’ at the bottom of the page. When they complete all the assignments and have collected all the visas, the students will give their passport to the teacher, who can then sign the Distinguished Player Certificate,” a statement from Monitor Publications Limited’s Marketing Manager Brian Mukisa reads in part.

Monitor Publications is partnering with the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and the International Association of Sports Newspapers and Norske Skog to implement this project.

The certificate will be signed by 1998 World Cup, English Premiership and Euro 2000 winner France’s Emmanuel Petit. Daily Monitor’s NiE is a learning tool currently in use in over 250 primary schools, and has benefited over one million primary school children since it started in 2007.

According to Mr Mukisa, the programme is the biggest in East and Central Africa. “There is still chance for schools and parents that are not enrolled on the NiE programme to pick Daily Monitor every Monday and participate in the activity,” he said.

NiE supports the Ministry of Education strategy of thematic learning. The programme is currently sponsored by World Vision, Zain Uganda, Citi Foundation, ZOA Refugee Care, the Norwegian Refugee Council and SNV.