Background
Sustainable Development Goal 4 is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all. As the renowned McKinsey report points out, a quality education depends on quality teaching. Quality teaching, however, requires quality training. Unfortunately, many Ugandan teachers, particularly in rural areas do not receive this.
Strategy
TEP aims to change this using a 3 strand approach.
Strand 1: Building a Network
There is extensive research showing that teacher collaboration is highly effective at improving teaching quality. The network that we have built fosters this collaboration between teachers. The network functions both online and face to face.Online we have a collaborative group with over 100 members. In this group teachers seek support, give advice and share resources using our online file sharing system. Furthermore, every 3 months we host a face-to-face collaborative meeting, in partnership with Edumatters, in which teachers and other education stakeholders come together to discuss and problem solve around key topics in education. Additionally, we are currently setting up subject specific communities of practice as another way to foster collaboration online and face to face.
Strand 2: Uniting Providers
As Kania and Kramer put it, “No single organisation is responsible for any major social problem, nor can any single organisation cure it.”
There are currently a number of teacher training organisations working in Uganda however they are somewhat scattered and isolated. We aim to bring these organisations together in order to create a bigger impact.
Therefore, assisted by LRTT, we have created the Ugandan Teacher Training Network. We have reached out to 16 organisations to join this. We aim for these organisations to collaborate in our dedicated online forum, to host inter-organisational visits and to participate in joint conferences and meetings on best training practice.
Strand 3: Providing Training
Our third and final strand is providing training to schools in need. When we partner with a school we identify a lead teacher and assess the school’s needs through observations, meetings and surveys. We then deliver an initial training workshop which responds to these needs and follow that with a tailored ongoing relationship with the school. This could involve observations, visits, training sessions, mentorship etc… For each school we will also train them up in the use of basic IT skills as this will increase their access to our online resources. Additionally we link them with a model school who can further support the school in their improvement process.
