Uganda: Irish Aid supporting primary education in Karamoja

Irish Ambassador to Uganda Donal Cronin with Uganda’s First Lady Janet Museveni, on a tour of one of the newly built schools in Karamoja.

Under the Karamoja Primary Education Programme, Irish Aid supported the construction and rehabilitation of 21 Primary Schools throughout the region with €12.7 million in funding. The programme,aimed to increase access and retention of pupils in primary schools, through infrastructure improvement of three schools in each of the seven districts, benefitting a total of 17,000 pupils in Karamoja.

Infrastructure developed included teacher’s housing, dormitories, classrooms and sanitation facilities. Support also includes the provision of furniture and instructional materials. Environmental conservation measures such as rainwater harvesting (590,000 litres total) and tree planting (630 trees total) were other activities supported by the programme.

The programme, which ran from 2013 to 2016, was implemented with partners Deloitte-Uganda, Proplan Partners and Turner & Townsend. The 21 beneficiary schools have a total enrolment of 17,008 pupils out of which 8,945 (53.7%) are boys and 8,066 (46.3%) are girls.

Ireland will continue to work with the leaders and people of Karamoja in their efforts to develop their region

It is expected that the total new enrolment in the 21 schools will increase by about 30% to about 22,470 in the next 4 years, and Karamoja will thus realize the goal of increasing access to primary education.

The Karamoja region is one of the poorest and least developed regions in Uganda, and suffers from high illiteracy rates. This investment in education will help to change that, and Ireland will continue to work with the leaders and people of Karamoja in their efforts to develop their region.