The 2019 National Teachers’ Policy (NTP) emphasises the government’s position on ensuring gender equality within schools and the incorporation of ICT in teaching and learning since the reform of the lower secondary school curriculum. This is in line with the government white paper 1992, which recognises the importance attached to the quality of teachers and notes the key leadership roles and services which teachers play in implementing education policies and programs. Some of these include skillfully imparting knowledge to learners to help them develop both the ability and desire to learn and encourage the development of their personality by guiding them to form positive and acceptable social values.

At Enabel, our initiatives under the Teacher Training Education Project are strongly aligned with Uganda’s Strategic Framework for Education. We focus on gender and digitalisation as some of the critical contributors to creating a conducive and sustainable teaching and learning environment to achieve Uganda’s international commitments embodied in the UN-SDGs, specifically, SDG4.  

In June 2022, we supported the Ministry of Education and Sports to monitor and assess teacher performance in the five National Teacher’s Colleges (NTCs), focusing on the application of learner-centred teaching methods. The activity was done to evaluate the practices of lesson delivery in the NTCs and map out the gaps and key areas that require attention and support. The monitoring activity was equally aimed at ensuring that the teacher training institutions promote a gender-responsive and friendly learning environment for their students at the colleges.         

Kaitasi Salome, a National Education Expert from Kyambogo University who participated in the monitoring exercise at NTC Mubende and Kaliro, stated that one of the prerequisites for achieving quality education as a tool for human capital development is the availability of competent and effective 21st-century teachers. “We are here to observe how the teacher trainers are sustaining Active Teaching and Learning, the incorporation of Gender Responsive Pedagogy (GRP) and the use of ICT in the classroom,” she said. She added that in the past, Gender Responsive Pedagogy was not taken seriously but was pleased to find that most of the lessons she observed were engaging and non-biased. “We have made considerable progress on how we teach at the colleges. In almost all the lessons I monitored, lecturers are well versed with using ICT to teach and provide equal opportunities to male and female students to participate in the classroom”.  

Max Okiror, the Assistant Commissioner, TETD department of the Education Ministry, said that teacher education is undergoing a reform to ensure that the teachers produced from the NTCs are competent. He added that investing in teachers will ensure that learners acquire the needed skills, knowledge and values that contribute to national development. “Evidence from the best education systems around the world reveals that the quality of teachers is the most important factor in determining how well students learn. We thank Enabel for supporting the department in carrying out this exercise. It will enable the Ministry to support the teacher trainers in the areas they are lacking and help us achieve quality teacher education”, he added.

Considering the new context, Enabel supports the Ministry of Education in improving the teacher training institutions’ digital readiness for a hybrid education system while ensuring a gender-responsive and friendly teaching and learning environment.