The Aga Khan Development Network is making a lasting impact on the lives of thousands of Ugandan children and adults by providing access to high-quality education. AKDN agencies have been involved in education in Uganda since the 1930s, when the first Aga Khan schools were established, and over the years AKDN’s contribution to the country’s education sector has both broadened and deepened. The Network provides a continuum of services, from early childhood education at the grassroots level through the Madrasa Early Childhood Programme to high-quality tertiary education that benefits students, teachers and school management. AKDN agencies also work closely with the Ugandan government, using their expertise in education, to provide training, research, programme design and policy formation support to the Ministry of Education and Sports.
Aga Khan Education Service, Uganda (AKES,U) operates two nursery schools and two private co-educational day schools that aim to diminish the many obstacles to educational access and opportunity by offering high quality value for money education geared to develop inquisitive learners and the country’s future leaders and job creators.
AKES,U offers two educational pathways for 2-19 years olds. The national pathway enables students to benefit from a high quality child-centric nursery education, preparing them for entry into the primary school and then onwards into secondary with students taking standardised national exams. The international pathway offers the same nursery program, followed by a 7 year program leading to Cambridge IGCSE and finally the IB Diploma programme. The programme includes a curriculum and pedagogy, student assessment, professional development for teachers and a process of school authorisation and evaluation.
The International Baccalaureate Programme was launched by the school in 2005 and AKES,U has graduated over 300 students in the last 10 years. The Aga Khan High School is one of only three schools in Uganda accredited to offer the IB programme.
The Aga Khan University School of Nursing and Midwifery in Kampala aims to strengthen health systems in Uganda by upgrading nursing skills, improving the quality of health care and developing new and more professional nursing courses.
AKU-educated nurses act as change agents and leaders by providing outstanding care and by helping to improving the quality of care provided by other nurses. The University’s alumni in Uganda lead nursing schools, serve as hospital head nurses and helm professional organisations.
The School Improvement Programme (SIP) consists of two sub-programmes designed to increase the quality of pre-primary and primary education in Uganda.
First, the "Strengthening Education Systems in East Africa (SESEA)" project aims to improve learning outcomes for boys and girls in pre-primary and primary school and strengthen teacher education and support systems.
SESEA includes three components designed to strengthen the performance of the education systems in the three target districts and beyond:
- Strengthening education support systems and institutions by building accountable leadership, management and technical capacity within the education systems;
- Sharing evidence-based knowledge and learnings, allowing policymakers and civil society organisations to make better-informed decisions about education reforms and interventions to improve educational outcomes; and
- Developing skilled and competent teachers at the pre-primary and primary levels through accredited professional development programmes.
Second, AKF is demonstrating the transformative potential of information and communication technologies to strengthen teaching and learning in primary education through the "Transforming Student Learning and Teacher Professional Development through ICT in Kenya and Uganda" programme. AKF is working in collaboration with the Ugandan government and innovative local companies to use ICT to improve professional development opportunities available to teachers and education officials, student learning materials and resources, and systems for monitoring changes in teaching practices and learning outcomes.
In recognition of the correlation between the quality of teacher education and socio-economic growth in the developing world, agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network are providing teachers with the skills they need to educate future leaders. They offer an array of training and academic programmes for pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, teacher educators and education managers from both the public and private sectors in Uganda.
In 2014, the Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development trained more than 800 secondary school head teachers in Uganda under a grant from the World Bank and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.
The "Strengthening Education Systems in East Africa (SESEA)" project aims to improve learning outcomes for children in pre-primary and primary schools in the Yumbe, Koboko and Arua districts of West Nile. A foundational component of SESEA is supporting skills development in teachers at the pre-primary and primary levels through accredited professional development programmes. SESEA has partnered with primary teachers’ colleges to deliver improved professional development opportunities to pre-service teachers, and is supporting in-service teachers at the 150 primary schools and 50 pre-primary schools participating in the programme. Educators also access professional development opportunities through the Aga Khan University Institute of Educational Development, Eastern Africa (IED), which serves as leading a centre for teacher training and professional development in the region.
In addition to SESEA, Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is supporting the creation of locally owned early childhood development centres in Uganda through its Madrasa Early Childhood Programme (MECP). Since 1993, MECP has offered proficiency and bridging courses to uncertified pre-primary teachers, helping them to obtain government recognition. In 2013, building on two decades of experience, MECP established the Madrasa Early Childhood Development Institute, a government accredited early childhood development training centre. Hundreds of pre-school teachers have participated in the institute’s programmes.
