NMG, CERUDI partner to improve education performance

Nation Media Group - Uganda (NMG-Uganda) has partnered with Centre for Rural (Development Initiatives CERUDI) to improve academic performance in Butaleja District.

 The partnership, which is aimed at stimulating appropriate learning, was launched at Butaleja Demo Primary School in Butaleja Town Council last weekend.

 The school is under The Newspaper in Education (NIE) programme, which was designed by NMG-Uganda to help improve reading culture among the learners in primary and secondary schools in the district. It was informed by the poor performance in schools.

 Mr Amos Kisambira, the executive director of CERUDI, said the project will help to build the capacity of teachers and learners. CERUDI is a non-profit organisation that operates in Uganda in the areas of education, health and governance. 

The NIE programme is managed by the Daily monitor as a teaching aid in class, which in the end leads to better grades among learners.

 “The objectives of the project are to enhance the capacity of stakeholders in learning, track the progress of learning and build networks in the field of learning,” Mr Kisambira said.

 He added that they have zeroed in on an early education programme given the history of performance in the district.

 “Butaleja is among the 10 worst performing districts in both primary and secondary. This has influenced our intervention because if we were to serve this society properly, then we should be able to contribute to better performance of education in the district. The worst performing learners in primary and secondary came from Butaleja,” he said.

 He added that they conducted a survey with the Ministry of Education and Sports and discovered that two areas contribute to poor performance in the district, which include the inability to read and interpret by the learners.

“If learners can’t read and appreciate the questions, definitely they can’t answer questions,” he said.

 Mr Kisambira said they intend to extend the programme to other eight districts such as Namayingo, Butebo, and Budaka.

 Mr Henry Mangeni, the eastern regional sales supervisor for Daily Monitor, said the NIE magazine has improved academic performance in most schools across the country.

 “What we do as NIE is we partner with individuals or organisations to implement the project for the beneficiary,” Mr Mangeni said, adding that NIE magazine motivates children to love reading.

 He further said: “In Butaleja, we are going to train all teachers in the areas specified by CERUDI on skimming level and lesson planning,” he said.

  Mr Mangeni also said the selected schools in Butaleja will benefit from European Union donations in form of reading materials.

 “We are also going to identify ambassador teachers from each of the selected schools and they will help us to form reading or writing clubs to improve performance,” he said.

 He said NIE magazine publishes children’s stories and photos in a bid to motivate them and that it comes out every Monday in the Daily Monitor.

 “It helps to motivate reading culture, it will motivate and inspire children. The ambassador teachers will identify the topic from the newspaper to improve their debating skills,” he said.

 He further said teachers in the beneficiary schools will also access Excel in Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) that comes out every Wednesday.

“On every Wednesday, we publish questions for that week with guided answers from the previous week,” he said.

 Mr Isaac Wamalwa, the project manager of CERUDI, said this partnership will enhance reading and writing culture.

 “It will support teachers and learners on how to use newspapers as learning aids such that they can apply that knowledge to other different subject requirements,” Mr Wamalwa said.

  Ms Justine Florence Namwima, the head teacher of Buhasango Primary School, one of the beneficiary schools, said it will improve reading and writing culture among pupils.

  “We are using newspapers to ensure that we teach more effectively and efficiently. Newspapers in these rural settings are rare commodities,” she said.

PLE performance

The Butaleja District Education Officer, Ms Esther Adeke, said the district registered only 149 pupils in Division One in the 2023 PLE.

 She added that although the district has reduced the number of children failing, more efforts are needed to improve the performance.

“We registered 676 pupils who failed. But in the previous years, we have been registering 2000 to 3000 ungraded in PLE,” she said.