Media called on to support education reporting

28 April 2023, 5:39 pm

Byamukama Alozious > byamukamaalozious1993@gmail.com

In order to have quality education in Uganda, Media challenge initiative has called on media t and education partners to make education more practical and accessible for all. During the first National Media Dialogue on Education held at MCI Hub in Kabalagala, Abas  Mpindi, Chief Executive Officer at MCI  challenged media  in Uganda to make stories that meet the national agenda through partnering with local radios, freelancers  as the only way to have well  balanced stories on education

‘’If you are a media house in Kampala, and you do not have resources to send a journalist in Arua,karamoja or Bundibujo then how can you pattern with a local radio station  or a freelance journalist to provide you with that information in real time?, because  with the work we are doing you can’t  be everywhere ,but there are journalists in communities, how can you work  with them to authenticate   the information they are giving you!.  What’s important is that the stories we make must reach wide and meet the national agenda” Mpindi said.

Media challenge wants media  and stakeholders from the Government, Civil Society Organizations to justly possible solutions to mitigate education challenges and amplify media coverage and reporting on solutions to education challenges for increased enrolment and retention of  rural and urban schools

Uganda has about 47508 primary schools and 12491 are government aided and 8176 secondary schools where 1370 are Government aided.

According to the World Bank Report (2018), for Uganda, access to education is standing at 55 percent which accounts for the inequalities in education. The high rates of children out of school therefore creates social and economic challenges which hinder the countries efforts to create sustainable long-term growth as the much- needed human resource cannot be met (OECD, 2008). Between 2013 and 2018. Primary school attendance in Northern Uganda declined for girls and boys by approximately 20% Girls were found to have the highest rates of school dropout and failure to regularly attend across upper primary, secondary and tertiary education (Atim Mazurana Marshak 2019). The new abridged curriculum is currently implemented in secondary schools. However, according to the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC, 20131,there are a number of challenges in the implementation of the secondary school curriculum such as, largely unchanged content in the curriculum since the colonial times overloaded learning content, textbooks entrenched with rote learning culture and devoid of illustrations, activities or assessment assignments, of teacher-centered methods of teaching and allowing no opportunity to learners to acquire a wide variety of skills and competencies necessary for successful living This suggests that, the curriculum and the assessment systems are not to a large extent aligned with the needs of the learners and the society.

Filbert Maguma from Uganda National Teachers Union UNATU says media in Uganda has not prioritized girl children education as still many girls leave school where the issues pushing them  out can be handled . He said media has a role to highlight the role of education to change the mind set of parents and stake holders and even young people themselves to promote inclusive education for all gender.

According to the Chair Person Uganda Media women’s Association UMWA, Dr. Litho Patricia, Uganda Government should have changed the teaching system to practical by copying from the Covid19 Pandemic period when everything went scientific, she says education systems must to turn to practical from the lower primary levels to high levels in order to match with the emerging technologies globally and that is when education will produce better results to benefit this Country