GOOD HOPE -KIBURARA: TEACHERS LEARN FROM FELLOW TEACHERS

Good hope foundation together with other RWECO partners organized interschool teacher learning exchange visit with the main purpose of enhancing teacher’s skills on how violence against children is prevented in other areas of Kasese district. Teachers learnt other factors that cause violence against children in different schools of operation, how other schools prevent VAC as well as they interacted with other fellow teachers from the different schools of operation.

3 project primary schools participated in the exchange which include; Kiburara primary school from Kisinga Sub County, Kenyange muslim primary school and Karusandara SDA primary from Karusandara sub county and one secondary school which was Kisinga Vocation secondary school. 6 primary teachers that is; the senior woman and senior man teachers participated in this exchange were the two teachers from Kiburara primary school joined other schools from the Bukonzo county to Ibuga primary school mainly to learn how this school have managed to sustain its system of providing midday meals to its pupils and the existence of facilities such as wash rooms and changing rooms for the girls while the 4 teachers from Kenyange Muslim primary school and Karusandara SDA primary school joined the Busungoro schools to Katwe primary school to learn and share how children at landing site are handled in as far as violence against children prevention is concerned since most of the children in Katwe are always engaged in fishing and salt mining however amidst that, teachers and parents have done their best to ensure they stay in school, therefore the teachers had to share their experiences and the visiting teachers recommended ways of preventing Violence Against Children. Among other people who attended the exchange included; the inspector of schools, chairperson LC 1 and the chairperson school management of every host school.

During the exchange, teachers had to tour the school environment of the hosting schools and among the facilities toured included; the teachers staff rooms, the changing rooms for the girls which contained sanitary pads, gerican of water and towels, then also the girls wash rooms, as well as the latrines which had also a gerican of water and soap. For Kaatwe primary school, teachers had to tour the fishing area and the various businesses engaged in by the pupils at the landing site such as net spreading which is done at a cost of 4000 per net and this makes many of pupils not to go to school.

It was also shared that most of these schools have improved their health facilities for their children, introduced alternative punishments, and utilized the school land to improve the welfare of teachers and children by producing food crops for teachers and children and also improving the income base for the teachers. All this is done to reduce violence against children and reducing on the absenteeism of teachers as well improving teacher-pupil performance. However it was noticed that majority of the schools have water challenge that affects the operation of the schools.

Members were also introduced to micro teaching during the exchange mainly to share the good methods and skills applied in teaching that teachers can adopt to improve the academic performance children in their respective schools.

From the sharing and discussions, members had to come up with way forward in regard to preventing violence against children and adolescents in their respecting schools and these included the following.

Teachers agreed to be role models at workplace and at their homes and in the community
Schools not providing lunch to pupils will convince parents to start the initiative also.
All teachers in the respective schools to be fully engaged in preventing violence against children in schools
Girl friendly facilities to be introduced in every school of operation
Schools to emphasize educational punishments
Teachers also agreed to intensify school debates and children’s parliament
Schools to introduce counseling rooms
Teachers to start sensitizing parents on violence against children during the PTA meetings
Teachers to ensure that syllabuses are completed in time to enhance pupil performances
The management to start clustering the PTA meetings to cater for the hard to get categories of parents such as the cattle keepers.
Teachers also committed themselves to improve the co-curricular activities as a means of keeping pupils in school