Improving pupils’ learning through village reading camps

Augustine Obol is a 68-year old resident of Pagwari West village, Acoro parish, in Pader District.

Having missed out on education in his early formative years, Obol has made it his goal to improve the reading and writing skills of youngsters.

This is the reason he offered his homestead as a village reading camp. The camps are special class sessions conducted by specially trained teachers outside the normal school class schedules and have been embraced in Pader and Oyam districts in northern Uganda.

The initiative was started three years ago by World Vision to improve on literacy skills for primary school pupils in northern Uganda.

“I offered my compound to be used as a classroom because I also wanted to learn English,” Obol said. When village reading camps are being conducted by village teachers, he sits at the back of the class under a mango tree so that he can also eat from the same basket as primary pupils. He attends village classes with six of his grandchildren.

At the reading camps
At every reading there are two teachers managing operations. At Obol’s homestead, it is Francis Obina who is in charge.

Obina is a volunteer teacher trained by World Vision Uganda under the Pader-Agago cluster to ease the learning process of primary pupils in village learning camps.
So far, 1,200 children have benefitted from this project where teachers interact with pupils and allow them ask what they do not understand.

According to Obina, reading camp classes are conducted for only two hours every Saturday and Sunday. Pupils from primary one to primary five from different schools regularly attend so as to be able to read and write when they get to primary seven.

“I spend more time with the pupils. When they need to understand something in their local language and it’s written in English, I interpret for them,” Obina says, adding that these classes have also improved communication, debate and interaction between pupils and village class teachers.

What makes it different?
In a formal school setting, as Obina highlights, pupils are usually many and teachers do not give adequate attention to each pupil, thereby creating gaps in the child’s learning process.

“The kind of teaching I offer in village reading camps does not mean they shouldn’t go to school. It is additional learning to help them understand better what they are not taught at school by their class teachers,” Obina explains.

At Oweka and Pagwari primary schools, some of the schools that have embraced village reading camps, not only get to learn about their cultural practices but also get to know how alphabetical letters are written and pronounced in both the local and English languages.

“When I interact with pupils at a friendly level, they easily open up and you are able to assess their learning needs, Obina says adding that when they learn how to read and write different words in their local language and English, it becomes easy for them to interpret when they are sitting for school exams or tests.

Ojok Walter, a community development facilitator at World Vision Uganda under Pader-Agago cluster says the camps exist in 10 schools in Pader District. “We have 20 camps and each camp is run by two teachers to help children learn easily,” Ojok says.

Benefits
Anthony Ojok Jogi, the District inspector of schools in Pader District says reading camps are important because when children go back home from school, most parents do not revise with them.