Schools of the Future – Uganda

Uganda is a beautiful country on the equator in East Africa, on the north side of Lake Victoria. While there has been a lot of conflict in Uganda, it is has a stable government and English as the official language. The education system in place is relatively good but has a lot of room for improvement. The statistic shows that only 13% of the population in Uganda complete the secondary level. In the technical field, a field important for further development of a country it gets worse. In total, only 0,35% actually finish tertiary education in a technical field (NL:6,8%)[EdStats].

Uganda is a beautiful country on the equator in east Africa, on the north side of Lake Victoria. While there has been a lot of conflict in Uganda, it is has a stable government and English as the official language. The education system in place is relatively good, but has a lot of room for improvement. Statistic show that only 13% of the population in Uganda complete the secondary level. In the technical field, a field important for further development of a country it gets worse. In total, only 0,35% actually finish the tertiary education in a technical field (NL:6,8%)[EdStats]. This can be explained by:

• Low teaching-quality due to lack of qualified teachers, textbooks and infrastructures;
• Drop-outs rates due to limited or insufficient funds
• Lack of stimuli and interest in studying among teens
• Inadequate impact of educational activities in the districts
• Lack of long term vision among parents

The challenge becomes to convince the children, the schools, the community and the family, that the world of science and technology is an interesting one, with a lot of job opportunities and a bright future, for the children themselves, but also for the country as a whole.

Schools of the Future is a project series which focuses on improving technical education for children and communities in developing countries. The first project, Schools of the Future – Mozambique, successfully finished their first field trip in 2017, where they visited schools and hosted a workshop on building a solar toy car. This edition was very successful and received a lot of positive feedback from the local community. And there is a second visit in 2018!

Engineers Without Borders – the Netherlands was so enthusiastic that it decided to launch a second project, Schools of the Future – Uganda. In this edition we are collaborating with Knowledge For Children, a local NGO that focuses on quality education for children Uganda and Cameroon. They have a strong connection with several primary schools in Uganda and will assist us in arranging the school activities.

We believe that a strong technical backbone in education helps the country to develop. Our goal is to invest in the knowledge of children and local communities and get them interested in science and technology; raising awareness about the importance of these subjects for their own society by teaching and helping them where needed to pursue such education.

Most of the activities will take place in the Netherlands,where we will design a workshop kit with the aim not just to interest children, but to inspire them to discover the world of science and technology on their own. The workshop will be created in close collaboration with our partner Technolab Leiden. The kits will first be tested at primary schools and refugee centres in the Netherlands. After making the final adjustments it will be launched in Uganda, expected to be in June 2020.