By the time a child sits their Primary Seven final examinations, they have lost the equivalent of two and a half years of learning to a broken system.
At the beginning of 2026, we expanded our Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme to 23 schools across the sub-counties of Wairasa, Magamaga, and Baitambogwe in Mayuge District. This expansion marked another important step toward our long-term goal of scaling our ECD model across Uganda.
Before implementation began, participating schools underwent a week-long curriculum training in February facilitated by personnel from the National Curriculum Development Centre. Resident teacher coaches were then assigned to each school to provide weekly mentorship, classroom support, and monitoring. Teachers also received electronic tablets preloaded with curriculum materials and learning resources to strengthen lesson preparation and classroom delivery.
As we concluded the first term, our observations between February and April revealed both encouraging progress and deeper structural realities that continue to shape learning outcomes in the communities we serve.
Six Weeks of Learning Lost Every Year
Although Uganda's school terms officially run for approximately twelve to thirteen weeks, the actual learning period is considerably shorter in practice. The first two weeks are never taught. At least, not formally, and not consistently.
Teachers and schools operate on the assumption that children are still returning. Parents, for their part, take the first days of the term casually, convinced that no learning is taking place. At the end of the term, the last two weeks are lost to assessments and examinations, and sometimes cut short owing to the lack of resources to sustain the school population for the entire course of the scheduled term period. This is four weeks lost every term, for each of the three school terms and one school term lost for every year. By the time a child sits their Primary Seven final examinations, they have lost the equivalent of three and a half years of schooling to a broken system. Recovering this lost time may be one of the most important interventions Uganda’s education system can make.
Different Understandings of What Learning Looks Like
Our parent engagement meetings also revealed important differences in how communities perceive quality education. Interestingly, resistance to play-based and child-centred learning approaches did not primarily come from parents with limited formal education. In many cases, it came from parents who themselves had progressed through more traditional schooling systems.
For these parents, effective learning is often associated with quiet classrooms, rigid discipline, repetition, and teacher-centred instruction because those were the methods through which they were educated. As a result, classrooms built around movement, storytelling, curiosity, participation, and play can initially appear unfamiliar or even ineffective.
At the same time, many parents with little or no formal schooling evaluated learning differently. Rather than focusing on silence or memorisation, they observed whether children appeared confident, engaged, expressive, and excited to attend school.
These conversations reminded us that transforming education is not only about training teachers or changing classroom practice. It also requires building community understanding around how children learn best.
What the First Term Has Taught Us
The findings from this first term provide important direction for where our investment and intervention should go in the coming months. They reinforce the need for stronger community engagement, consistent classroom support, and continued mentorship for teachers as they transition toward child-centred learning approaches. They also highlight the importance of protecting instructional time and challenging practices that quietly reduce children’s opportunities to learn.
Most importantly, they affirm the value of regular child assessment and close programme monitoring. enjuba’s commitment to continuous observation and evaluation is not simply administrative; it is central to programme quality. The data gathered this term gives teachers, coaches, and programme leadership a stronger basis for decision-making and improvement.
As our work in Mayuge continues, we remain encouraged by the openness of schools, the resilience of teachers, and the enthusiasm of children who continue to show us what meaningful learning can look like when they are given the chance to fully participate.