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Teachers Making a Difference in Uganda

This year the Irish Embassy in Uganda began sponsoring the Teachers Making a Difference programme.  The award programme, which recognises excellence in teaching, has been run by the New Vision Publishing Company since 2008.  In January, the five teachers from Uganda who were highest placed in the awards, will visit Ireland to attend the WorldWise Global Schools Post Primary Teachers’ conference in Dublin and meet with Irish teachers.  The visit is organised by Trócaire, who along with Simba Travel Care, are another partner in the award programme.

Teachers Making a Difference recognises the most creative and innovative teachers working in difficult environments.  They mobilise their communities to send and keep their children in school, are creative in using limited resources to deliver quality education, innovative in integrating low cost ICT in schools, and promote vocational and life skills education.  These are all priorities of the wider Irish Aid education programme.

From over 600 teachers nominated by their communities, twelve winners were recognised as the most innovative and inspiring teachers and, out of these, the top five were selected to travel to Ireland. On the 5th of October an awards ceremony was held in Kampala where the winners were announced by John C. Muyingo, the State Minister for Higher Education. The Irish Ambassador, Finbar O’Brien, also attended with representatives of the other programme sponsors.
 
As part of the programme, New Vision profiled one of the shortlisted teachers, Sajidi Tabuga. He is a volunteer teacher working in the Bidi Bidi refugee camp in Yumbe district in northern Uganda, in the Early Child Development Centre for refugees from South Sudan. It is very difficult to find teachers to work in what is one of the largest refugee camps in the world. Sajidi is dedicated to working in these difficult conditions. Sajidi recycles boxes, bottles and anything else he finds in the camps to make teaching aids, and he organises football games after class using a football made from plastic bags.  He also ensures attendance by making home visits when a child has missed school.
 
The award scheme is in line with the Irish Embassy’s wider education programme goals.  These aim to provide better access to, and completion of, quality education and training in marginalised areas. The programme covers primary, secondary and vocational education. The Embassy contributes to improving the education sector in Uganda by working with NGOs, UN organisations and partner country development cooperation programmes.  For example, it supports the NGO Straight Talk Foundation to implement a bursary programme, which so far has enabled 1,950 students to access secondary and tertiary education.