Engaging Local Council Chairpersons in Uganda

Over the last three years Uwezo Uganda has engaged Local Council III Chairpersons (LC3s) as Uwezo messengers in sharing findings on learning and stimulating dialogue at sub-county level. LC3s are at the center of service delivery in Uganda as they reach out to the community, lower local governments and they also sit as ex-officials in the district councils where they can influence leaders in higher levels of local governance.

In 2014, Uwezo Uganda identified and engaged 8 LC3s, in 2015 26 LC3s were engaged and in 2016, 50 LC3s in 50 districts were engaged for a period of 6 months (December 2016 to May 2017). At the start the LC3s are taken through a capacity building training and mid-way, a review meeting is held with an aim of availing them with knowledge about Uwezo, findings from the assessments and skills on how to carry out Uwezo activities to sensitize parents, teachers and district local officials to take action and find ways of improving children’s learning outcomes.

Highlights of some of the activities conducted by LC3 Chairpersons in specific districts include:

• In Ngora district, the LC3 Chairperson organized parents and teachers’ community dialogue to discuss how to improve children’s learning and promises to keep up the discussions until everyone starts playing their part in improving learning outcomes.
• LC3 Chairperson Namayingo district holds inspection meetings monthly with school management committees in Banda sub-county and plans to keep holding these meetings with all school management committees of school that performed poorly in the 2016 Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) examinations to brainstorm solutions for the present problems that affect children’s learning.
• LC3 Chairperson Kumi district conducted teacher monitoring sessions in different schools in his sub county and promised to keep doing monthly teacher monitoring sessions in different schools in Kumi to get a clear picture of what is affecting children’s learning in in the area.
• Budaka district LC3 Chairperson organized weekly school inspections with councilors and local council leaders to monitor the presence of both teachers and pupils.
• The LC3 Chairperson for Gulu district held a joint community meeting under the theme ‘Children’s Education’ and brought together councilors, parents, teachers and other concerned citizens to discuss the role each could play to improve children’s learning.

A number of other successful activities were achieved in three other areas. In Maracha district a joint multi-sectoral food security and nutrition program was formed to support children’s feeding in schools and to encourage parents to cultivate more nutritious foods to feed their children in order to improve their learning and concentration in class.

Mbale LC3 Chairperson held a talk show on Step TV about children’s learning where he won a donor fund from the YMCA director through Post Bank to support primary school children in seven Primary schools with a school feed fund worth 11 million Uganda Shillings (approximately USD 3,000) and a school feeding fund worth 10 million 
Uganda Shillings (approximately USD 2,800).

After conducting a number of advocacy meeting in both schools and communities, LC3 Chairperson Iganga obtained the best results of Iganga Northern Division emerging as the best sub-county in the previous UNEB examinations in both primary and secondary schools with the highest number of pupils with division 1.