Teacher Professional Development
Kimanya-Ngeyo Foundation recognizes the essential role teachers play in building the intellectual and moral capacities of younger generations and helping them develop their full potential to make meaningful contributions to the betterment of society. In order to assist local teachers to assume this noble role more consciously and effectively, the organization began to offer in 2015, with the support of educational officials, a year-long training program to primary and later secondary school teachers in Jinja and Buikwe districts, using selected texts of the Preparation for Social Action program as well as supplementary texts that explore questions of pedagogy.
“for us a capability is not something a student either has or does not have. It is something that one develops progressively as one acquires a set of interrelated skills, assimilates relevant information, advances in the understanding of the relevant concepts, and develops certain attitudes, habits and spiritual qualities.”
-FUNDAEC
Since 2015, more than 2,000 public and private school teachers have participated in the organization’s professional development program. In addition to helping them advance in their capabilities connected to effective planning and delivery of curriculum, participation in the program has also assisted teachers in assuming a greater role in the overall well-being of their students in and out of the classroom, strengthening their relationship with parents and the community.
Results from a randomized evaluation of our professional development program, beginning in 2017, suggest that the training has had a dramatic impact on student learning (see “Learning to Teach by Learning to Learn”, Nourani et al.,2023). More specifically, students’ pass rate on the Ugandan Primary Leaving Examination increased from 51% to 75%, which places the program in the top five percentile of all rigorously evaluated educational interventions in terms of learning-adjusted years of schooling per USD spent (Ashraf et al., 2020). In addition, results suggest that students of Kimanya trained teachers were able to demonstrate practical scientific competencies as measured by performance at science shows evaluated by local judges.
In the coming years, Kimanya-Ngeyo, together with its research partners, has proposed a government partnership with our evidence-based teacher-training program. Our goal is to utilize the structure of Core Primary Teachers Colleges (CPTCs), as well as other teacher training institutions, to scale models of teacher professional development that promote a capabilities-inspired approach to learning.
“A prevalent shortcoming of today’s educational systems is that the distinction between assimilating information and understanding concepts has become blurred.”
-FUNDAEC