31.1 Introduction

The education system in Uganda has gone through numerous changes over the last decade, including changes in curriculum, increased funding by the government, and the increased role of the private sector in the provision of education from primary to university education level. The broad aims of the education system in Uganda are eradication of illiteracy, promotion of scientific, technical, and cultural knowledge; promotion of national unity; and promotion of moral values. In order to improve the quality of education service delivery, the government of Uganda has identified and integrated Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the education curriculum.

31.2 General Structure and Characteristics of Education in Uganda

Formal education in Uganda consists of preprimary (nursery), primary, secondary/postprimary, and tertiary/post secondary education levels. Primary level (for pupils between 6 and 12 years) covers a period of 7 years from primary one to primary seven. The postprimary level is composed of secondary education and Business, Technical, and Vocational Education and Training (BTVET). Secondary education (for students aged between 13 and 18 years) is divided into 4 years of ordinary level (‘O’ level) with classes from senior one to four and two years of advanced level (‘A’ level) with classes from senior five to senior six. After primary school, students also have an option of joining BTVET institutions that mainly offer practical and hands-on learning experiences. There are a variety of BTVET institutions, and they include community polytechnics, farm schools, technical colleges, vocational training institutes, colleges of commerce, health training institutions, and other specialized training institutions in forestry, fisheries, wildlife, meteorology, and survey. The students are awarded certificates and diplomas after one or two years depending on the discipline.

Primary and postprimary education in Uganda are controlled and supervised by the Ministry of Education and Sports, while the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE) supervises tertiary education. Primary and secondary education (up to senior four) are compulsory for all citizens under the Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE) programs. The curriculum and instructional materials for the primary and postprimary levels are developed by the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) and implemented by the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoE&S), which has developed education policies, strategies, laws, and regulations. The Ministry of Education is composed of the directorates of Basic and Secondary Education, Higher Education, Education Standards, and Technical and Vocational Education, which implement policies and regulations to ensure quality education and consistency in the curriculum.

As a means of increasing the number of pupils attending primary school, the government of Uganda in 1997 introduced Universal Primary Education (UPE), which has resulted in a steady increase in pupil enrollment from 3 million in 1996 to 7.9 million in 2008. However, UPE created a demand for universal postprimary education as more pupils were completing the primary education level. In order to ensure equitable provision of quality education and training to all Ugandan pupils who successfully completed the primary education level, the government in 2007 started implementing the Universal Post Primary Education and Training (UPPET) program. As a result, the gross enrollment rate (GER) in schools is steadily increasing, with the government putting more emphasis and funding in the education sector.

31.3 Secondary Education in Uganda

Secondary school education in Uganda is guided by the National Secondary Education curriculum, most of which was inherited from the British at independence in 1962. However, the curriculum is currently undergoing a number of reforms with emphasis on altering not only the number of subjects that are taught but also ‘how and why’ they are taught. In the first phase of the curriculum reform in 2009, the number of subjects taught at ‘O’ Level was reduced from 42 to 18 in an effort to make it easier for students to easily select career-linked subject combinations. According to the National Curriculum Development Centre, the second phase of the reforms, due to begin in 2010, will include additional reforms to change the national examination system, rewrite the learning materials, and further lower the number of subjects to be taught.

Uganda has 2,908 secondary schools, with 57,158 secondary school teachers. Of the 2,908 schools, 57.3% are privately owned, 31.4% government owned, and 11% community owned. Of all the schools, 10.5% are urban based, 16.1% are peri-urban, and 37.8% are rural (MoE&S, 2008a). Before the introduction of Universal Secondary Education (USE) under the Universal Post Primary Education and Training policy in 2007, a small proportion of those who would complete Primary seven were able to join secondary education. Under the USE program, students attending secondary school drastically increased to 1.08 million in 2008 from 728,562 in 2005. The students, who were in senior one in 2007 when USE was introduced, sat for the Uganda Certificate of Education examinations in 2010. There are 803 government-owned schools and 428 privately owned secondary schools participating in the USE program, which currently caters to students in senior one to senior four. The UPPET policy was also later extended to cover the Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions. In 2009, there were 5,174 BTVET students in 46 government institutions and 1,076 students in 16 private institutions benefiting from UPPET capitalization grants (MoE&S, 2008b).

In order to be licensed by MoE&S to teach at the secondary school level in Uganda, teachers must have qualified from National Teacher Training colleges – as Grade V teachers – or they must have qualified from a university as a graduate teacher with a bachelor’s degree or a postgraduate diploma in teacher education. However, due to the limited number of qualified teachers, some schools still employ unlicensed and even untrained teachers, especially in rural areas. When teachers qualify and begin teaching, there are very few professional development programs to enhance their skills and to introduce them to new knowledge and technologies. Over the last two years the Ministry of Education has carried out some in-service training, but this has mainly been limited to science and mathematics teachers from the newly created districts. A number of teachers and head teachers have also received ICT in-service training.

Although the number of students attending secondary schools is increasing, a big challenge exists in regard to the urban–rural divide in terms of the number and quality of schools, teachers, and facilities. Most rural schools tend to (1) have limited infrastructure and teaching equipment like classrooms, laboratories, electricity, and computers; (2) attract few qualified teachers as most of them are not willing to teach in hard-to-reach rural areas; and (3) rely on untrained teachers. This rural–urban divide is reflected in the national secondary school examination results, where students in urban schools tend to perform better than those in rural schools.

31.4 Integration of ICT in Secondary Schools Curriculum

The government of Uganda, along with several other developing countries, has identified Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a key area for development, especially as countries move towards e-government and e-commerce management structures. Over the years, the government has integrated ICTs in the secondary school curriculum. The purpose is to equip students with skills that can enhance their participation in an increasingly information driven society. In order to provide a framework for mainstreaming this integration, The Republic of Uganda (2005) was drafted to rationalize and harmonize the ICT-related activities and programs that had hitherto been fragmented and uncoordinated.

The ICT policy highlights the need to revise the curriculum, train teachers to be ICT literate, and provide the required infrastructure. However, although the National Curriculum Development Centre has developed an ICT secondary school curriculum, urban schools have recorded a greater increase in the use of ICTs than rural schools (Eremu, 2009; MoE&S, 2005). This is because most rural schools are faced with challenges that constrain the use of ICT including lack of electricity, inability to afford computers, and a limited number of teachers who are ICT trained. To address the rural–urban schools ICT digital divide, a number of initiatives and projects have been rolled out by government to different levels of the education system and in different rural parts of the country. With support from a number of international organizations, various ICT initiatives have been started, and they include the following: SchoolNet Uganda, Connectivity for Educator Development (Connect-ED), CurriculumNet project, Global Teenager Program, U-Connect, among others. These initiatives focus on not only providing computers but also training teachers in using them for lesson preparation and teaching.

Despite a general increase in the use of ICT in Uganda’s education system, the integration of ICT in most schools in the country is largely limited to teaching basic computer-use skills (with emphasis on word processing applications) and, to a lesser extent, the use of the Internet for accessing educational materials. Most secondary school teachers have not been equipped with skills and software to make use of ICT in the preparation of lesson plans, teaching materials, and the delivery of lessons. Based on the foregoing discussion, it is recommended that ICT integration in the education system emphasize not only merely “having ICT” but also “what can be done with ICT” to avoid the utilization of the technology even in the schools that already have adequate ICT equipment.

31.5 Advent and Integration of GIS in Secondary Education

The Government of Uganda views land and geographic information as an infrastructure that can support planning, decision making, and the country’s economic growth. The public and the private sectors of Uganda are in the process of adopting GIS in their work operations. Although GIS awareness can be said to be increasing, detailed GIS knowledge is often lacking in the user environment. However, many people are increasingly realizing that adding a spatial dimension to their information may improve their understanding and work performance.

In the country’s education sector, the Ministry of Education and Sports has put in place the Education Management Information System (EMIS), which is used to assess the state of the country’s education system on an annual basis to ensure effective education management and planning. The primary source of data for EMIS is the annual schools census, which collects information about the schools, pupils, teachers, nonteaching staff, classrooms, textbooks, and infrastructure. To support education planning and management in a comprehensive way, GIS is integrated in EMIS so as to have a spatially oriented database that captures names, location, type, physical state, coverage, and accessibility of schools.

GIS is however a relatively new tool in the education system in Uganda, and, as a result, its usage is still limited. Its introduction and use have mainly been limited to the university level where, since the 1990s, it has been integrated in a number of disciplines such as geography, urban planning, tourism, environment management, surveying, and, recently, computing and information technology. Even then, GIS is still not widely used at all universities in the country. Out of the 29 universities in the country, it is mainly at Makerere University where GIS is widely used. The limited adoption of GIS in the university education system is mainly a result of limited number of lecturers trained to use it; limited availability of computers; high expense of the software; and limited knowledge about GIS and its capabilities.

As noted earlier, although the number of secondary schools using and teaching ICT is increasing, it is mainly for basic computer lessons. There is an absence of applied computer based tools being used in the teaching and learning process. A case in point is GIS, which is one of the tools that could be integrated in teaching subjects like geography. In addition, GIS not only has the potential for further enhancing the teaching of ICTs but can also increase students’ interest, motivation, and imagination in learning ICTs (MoE&S, 2005). Despite the importance and capabilities of GIS in teaching and learning, currently there is hardly any secondary school in the country using GIS in teaching and learning or for any other purpose. More important, GIS also does not feature anywhere in secondary school curriculum (NCDC, 2008; UNEB, 2008).

Apart from the absence of GIS in Uganda’s secondary school curriculum, the non use of GIS at secondary schools can also be attributed to its absence in teaching and learning in teacher training institutions. In most of the country’s teacher training colleges and universities, teachers are not introduced and trained in GIS. For instance, at Makerere University (the oldest and largest public university in Uganda), although GIS is taught to geography students (which is a teaching subject), students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in education do not study it. The justification put forward is that since GIS is not in the secondary school curriculum, geography teachers do not need or are not required to apply GIS skills when teaching the secondary schools. In addition, the ICT education policy does not specifically include computer-based teaching and learning tools such as GIS to be integrated in the secondary school curriculum.

Despite these limitations, a few International Secondary Schools in Uganda have started to integrate GIS into their curriculum, especially in teaching geography. Most of these schools offer curriculum following the UK- based International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) and the General Certificate of Education (GCE). For example, at Rainbow International School in Kampala, the capital city, teachers use WebGIS tools such as Google Earth and Google Maps to teach various aspects of geography like land use, location, and human settlement. However the schools (and others) do not have installed GIS software on their computers and as such no serious GIS is taught. Furthermore, the use of online spatial programs in teaching and learning is constrained by slow and intermittent internet connections which make images and maps take a lot of time to be downloaded.

Overall, most secondary school teachers in Uganda have not been trained in the use of GIS as a teaching and learning tool. Few teachers indicated that in 2006 they had received introductory GIS training under the Uganda GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) program, which was operating in 37 secondary schools across the country. However, the teachers had not used GIS in class since schools did not have GIS software installed on the school computers.

31.6 Challenges and Prospects of GIS Integration in Secondary Schools

Despite the various advantages and potential benefits of GIS to teachers and students, its integration into the secondary school curriculum in Uganda faces a number of challenges. The major challenge is the limited knowledge among education policy makers, head teachers, and other teachers about the capabilities and potential benefits that GIS can contribute to the secondary school teaching and learning environment. If this awareness can be accomplished, GIS can easily be adopted by various secondary schools in Uganda, given the existing opportunities. One reason is that the secondary school curriculum is undergoing review and more emphasis is being given to not only having ICT taught but also emphasizing how it can be applied as a tool to enhance learning and teaching. This means that introducing GIS will be more easily accepted and adopted once its capabilities and benefits are known to all stakeholders, especially those involved in curriculum design and implementation.

The prospects of popularizing GIS are high since a good number of schools already have functioning computer laboratories and will not have to incur a big cost setting up GIS laboratories. Such schools already have teachers who have the basic skills in computer use and some with basic GIS knowledge. Therefore it becomes easy to have in-house training for such teachers on how to use GIS techniques in various subjects offered in the curriculum. These teachers can then train other teachers in various subjects on how to integrate GIS in their various disciplines. Experiences from the international schools in the country that have begun integrating GIS in their curriculum, like Rainbow International School, offer good case studies that would be of great benefit when planning for the introduction of GIS in other secondary schools.

Furthermore, most teacher training colleges and universities have computer laboratories that can be used to teach GIS to teacher trainers and trainees. Staff from universities, such as Makerere, who already have competence in GIS applications and teaching can carry out such trainings. At Makerere University, GIS would easily be integrated in the curriculum of students pursuing Bachelor of Education degrees, since various disciplines are already teaching GIS. Readily available GIS teaching materials specifically developed for teacher training (such as the ones by Esri) would further facilitate the easy introduction of GIS at teacher training institutions and at various secondary school levels.

In general, the introduction of GIS in secondary schools teaching and learning is essential as it could help spur student’s motivation into various science and technology careers, an aspect that the Ministry of Education and Sports strategic plan aims to achieve, among others. GIS as an educational tool would not only enrich the curriculum by creating an inquiry-based learning environment but also equip secondary school graduates with specialized skills and knowledge required to pursue tertiary education or competitively enter the workforce.