Rebel Education

Uganda's School for Life: Educating out of Poverty (2017x1)

: 31, 2017

In the 21st century, for many young people "finding a job" is just not an option. And in Uganda, with youth unemployment at around 66 percent, the highest rate in Africa, schools need to tailor their education to meet the different needs of society. We are seeing that the youths that are undergoing the Educate! programme actually become community leaders because they are aware and cautious about what's going on in the community and sort of provide solutions for those challenges the community is going through. Emmanuel Kalyebi, programme coordinator of Educate! Educate! is an experience-based education model where a mentor goes into a secondary school with 40 "scholars". The mentor spends time with the scholars, delivering sessions on entrepreneurship, leadership, critical thinking and problem solving. The pedagogy enables the use of games, group work and encourages public speaking. The scholars are encouraged to set up businesses, which are open to everyone in the school. They are also encouraged to be responsive to the needs of their local communities. "Uganda has such a huge young demographic. Over 70 percent of the population is actually young people under the age of 30, and the challenge that we are having is that there is a mismatch between the number of students that graduate from school, and the available jobs in the market," Emmanuel Kalyebi, the programme coordinator of Educate!, says. Educate! focuses on making entrepreneurship - not just the theory, but the practice of it - a key part of what they offer. "One of the things you go through in Uganda's education system [is that] they give you a lot of theoretical knowledge ... What typically happens to most of us is that after school you cannot find employment. You don't have the right skills to get employed. So, if an employer is going to give you a job, they have to first train you again [with] skills that ideally education should be providing to you," Kalyebi says. Lilian Aero Olo