QUALITY OF TEACHERS A CONCERN – EDUCATION EXPERTS

Aga Khan university officials and stakeholders with the graduates during the graduation ceremony on May 27, 2025.

By Godwin Abedican
Abedican
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While Uganda has made progress in expanding access to education, challenges remain in ensuring the quality of teacher training and deployment.
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In the wake of this, Prof. Jane Rarieya, the Dean Aga Khan University Institute for Education Development (AKU-IED) East Africa has raised concerns over the quality of learner trainers in Uganda, urging the tutors in teacher training institutions to up their standards in order to produce teachers who meet the current changing trends in education
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While speaking during the closer of the Foundation For Learning (F4L) project, a 4 years project that was being implemented by Aga Khan University aimed at improving early childhood education at pre-primary and primary levels. ?
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According to Prof. Rarieya, much as there have been efforts towards establishing a proper education system in the country, the quality of tutors the country has need to be looked into to cause desired changes that suit the interest of the entire education system.
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?The quality of teaching and learning remains our greatest challenge and opportunity and therefore your role as college tutors is pivotal in ensuring that every learner across Uganda has access to competent, caring and confident teachers. Education doesn?t change the world, education changes people and the people change the world, and you have the responsibility of producing the people who are supposed to be the world changers. You are not just teaching teachers but you are shaping the very soul of our education system in Uganda. The student teachers you produce today will stand in front of classes in all parts of the country and your influence will echo through the lives of the countless children across every corner of Uganda,? Prof. Rarieya emphasized to the tutors.
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Under the F4L project, a total of 79 tutors from Arua core PTC and St. John Bosco PTC Lodonga benefited in which they got the opportunity to be trained for two years and graduated on Tuesday May 27, 2025 in a function held at Arua Core PTC.
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Prof. Rarieya further appeals to tutors not to under look their positions saying that, whatever they do for the sake of education has a long-lasting effect on the country?s future since the kinds of teachers they produce will eventually determine the type of people in whose hands the country will be in years to come.
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?Your willingness to reflect on your openness to new ideas represents the spirit of continuous improvement that we need in our teacher education colleges.? I would really want you to continue to question, to learn and to lead, continue to be mentors who inspire, researchers who inform and educators who transform? she appealed.
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However, in an interview with Rev. Fr. Hillary Orwinya Kago, the principle St. John Bosco PTC Lodonga, he said at institution level they are doing their best but they the set up in schools is their major undoing factor.
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?As the teacher training institutions, we actually do what it takes with the student teachers who come to us. Up to the time when we send them out, we are sure of their quality and we expect them to go and cause changes there. But now, the research we have done has brought us the evidence that the school culture in the various primary schools is the major hindering factor. Otherwise, as the factory producing these teachers, we are confident of our products because they go through a vigorous process for two years where they are examined taken for school practices twice and are assessed where those who are not able to are eliminated and those who go through are well prepared? he explained.
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?We need to change the environment and how things are in the primary schools so that when these student teachers eventually become teachers in the primary schools from the colleges, they get an environment which is good for them to operate and also succeed,? he added.?
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The quality of teachers in Uganda faces significant challenges, impacting the overall quality of education. Many teachers lack adequate content knowledge and pedagogical skills, particularly in the early grades. In Uganda, studies indicate that while professional development programs contribute to teacher performance, the level of effectiveness can be low.
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