ICT for Education in Uganda


In many countries, information and communications technology (ICT) has a clear impact on the development of educational curricula. Here in Uganda, the ministry of education has identified and defined a framework of ICT competencies for expected outcomes, related to knowledge, skills and attitudes that pupils are expected to achieve at the end of primary school. However, it has never been examined whether teachers are using ICT in accordance with the competencies proposed by the government.

In a survey conducted in some schools in 2015, results from some schools that try to teach ICT , show that teachers mainly focus on the development of theoretical ICT skills, whereas the ICT curriculum centres on the integrated use of ICT within the learning and teaching process. This shows the existence of a gap between the proposed and the implemented curriculum for ICT. The findings further conclude with the potential value of a school‐based ICT curriculum that ‘translates’ the national ICT‐related curriculum into an ICT plan as part of the overall school policy.

This therefore signifies an extreme existence of unrealistic ICT skills in our primary schools, lack of a structured curriculum and human resource skilled in this field. One of the many challenges facing developing countries like Uganda today is preparing their societies and governments for globalization and the information and communication revolution. Policy-makers, business executives, NGO activists, academics, and ordinary citizens are increasingly concerned with the need to make their societies competitive in the emergent information economy but they don't know exactly how best they can do this.


 Most international organisations like e-ASEAN Task Force and the UNDP  Development Information Programme,  share the belief that with enabling information and communication technologies (ICTs), countries can face the challenge of the information age. With ICTs they can leap forth to higher levels of social, economic and political development. I greatly hope that in making this leap, policy and decision-makers, planners, researchers, development practitioners, opinion-makers, and other stake holders will find this blog useful.

 I and my team are  therefore carrying out simultaneous surveys in different education sectors and institutions to come up with the best way of implementing the Ugandan curriculum in all levels of learning starting from kindergarten/nursery, primary school level to institutions of higher learning. I strongly believe that with the experience and training we have in both ICT and education sectors, we will come up with the best solution to this impending persistent problem.

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