Success Stories from Our Members in the field

Education Reform in Uganda Secures Better Future, Academy for Educational Development

Between 1993 and 2000, the government of Uganda overhauled its primary education system. The key to success was a partnership between American international aid agencies and the strong resolve of elected leaders in the sprawling central African nation.

Crucial ingredients in the campaign-- spearheaded by an American nongovernmental organization called the Academy for Educational Development, the US Agency for International Development and the World Bank-- were improving teacher education, mobilizing community support and convincing parents their children belonged in school.

The Academy for Educational Development and others trained more than 50,000 community organizers, headmasters and primary school teachers; while Irish and Dutch aid agencies helped construct colleges and classrooms.

But outside assistance alone could not turn the tide for primary education in Uganda. Enrollment did not explode until 1996, when President Yoweri Museveni threw the full weight of his government behind a policy of universal education. Museveni backed his rhetoric with a significant allocation of new funds for the program in Uganda, which now spends 31 percent of its national budget on education, 68 percent of which goes to primary education.

The results have been nothing short of remarkable.

Only 2.4 million children were enrolled in school during 1993, and entire classrooms were forced to share a single textbook. In seven short years, enrollment in primary schools skyrocketed to 6.3 million children, and students no longer shared a textbook with dozens of their classmates. The number of teachers in Uganda doubled during those years, and all of them now receive full training before taking over a classroom.

Educational reform is a basic building block for democracy and economic independence in developing nations, and nowhere in sub-Saharan Africa has that proven truer than in Uganda.