The project is helping parents to support and get involved with their children's education

A Plan and Nokia project in Uganda is using mobile technology to help improve school governance and achieve ‘education for all’.

Weak school governance is a major gap in implementing universal primary education in Uganda. 

This occurs because of 3 reasons which contribute significantly to the low accountability of schools to stakeholders, poor quality of learning and high school dropout rates:

• a belief by parents that education is solely the responsibility of the government and that parents have no role
• lack of systematic information flows among schools, students, parents and local education authorities
  
• limited community knowledge and organisational capacity to oversee schools.

Communication boost

Plan and Nokia's project aims to mobilise teachers, parents, students and local education authorities with the support of mobile services and radio to take an active role in school governance. 

The project is being piloted in 5 schools in Luwero. Mobile services will enable children and parents to give feedback, ask questions and receive information from schools via SMS.

Improving school governance helps to ensure that children receive high-quality education and also contributes towards achieving gender equality, lifelong learning opportunities for youth and adults, and adult literacy.

Reaching thousands

The project supports:

• 2,500 school boys and girls from 5 schools
• 50 head teachers, school governance committees and district staff with participatory governance training
• 800 parents and community members to effectively engage in school governance.
  

Indirectly, the project will reach: 

• 660,000 community members in the project area through radio educational programmes on school governance
• 1,000 parents and guardians through SMS messages about school governance.
  

Read more on Plan’s partnership with Nokia

Learn about Plan’s work in Uganda