Words and photographs by Ján Michalko
With large classes, not enough teaching materials and a mountain of caring responsibilities, teachers in low-resourced schools often find it difficult to dedicate time to support alumni engagement. As Ján writes in this blog, our approach to building networks of former students therefore relies on setting up committees at each school to make alumni engagement a success.
I must admit, I never wondered where the saying, ‘it takes a village’ came from. To me, it has become ago-to phrase which I often use to recognize that some challenges are simply beyond the possibilities of one person and require the joint efforts of a family, team or community.
The full phrase is actually, it takes a village to raise or educate a child, and it came to mind again recently, as we wrapped up our year-long collaboration with PEDN and Opportunity International (OI), who have been delivering the Empowerment for Girl Education (EGE) project sponsored by the UKAID’s Girls’ Education Challenge fund. It was a busy and ambitious year of piloting, implementing and iterating the best ways to nurture engaged and productive alumni networks at low-cost private primary and secondary schools.
You are probably thinking, and rightfully so, that the EGE project confirmed for us our inHive theory of change: that former students are part of this ‘village’ or community. They help to give boys and girls education that is more holistic and of improved quality than what the prevalent teacher-centered curriculum delivery allows.
And while that is true, what became apparent to me as we travelled across Jinja, Wakiso, Mukono, Mubende and Kampala in Uganda, was that it also takes a village to set up an alumni network. Or to be more exact, it takes the hard work, passion and dedication of directors, head teachers, parents, and students to get the networks off the ground.
AND THE VILLAGE IS…
It is still dark when we get to PEDN offices in Kampala to meet Molly, the PEDN project manager who has been a dedicated leader of the alumni programme. Molly has been one of the key individuals who ensured that our 92 partner schools received the support they needed over the last year through two dozen field workers who periodically visited the schools to oversee the EGE sessions.
We leave early in the morning with the hope to beat the traffic jam. Over the next five days this becomes our routine. We depart early with hope to outsmart trucks and taxis, yet almost always fail to do so, on our way to meet some of the alumni committees, who are setting up networks of former learners at their schools.
DIRECTORS
Each committee is slightly different – their composition, internal dynamics and activities vary. At Jackson’s school, for example, the committee members are teachers, parents and alumni themselves. And when I say Jackson’s school, it is the school that he started more than 20 years ago, when he bought a plot of land and built the first four walls. Like many other school leaders, he decided to step in where the government is not able to cater to all the educational needs of children in his community.
Since then, the school has grown and has nearly 300 learners. Jackson’s passion for the school’s alumni, or Old Boys (OB’s) and Old Girls (OG’s) as they are known in Uganda, is clearly shown in the work that the committee has achieved: last year they hosted a reunion celebration where an alumni-led OB’s and OG’s association was established. Jackson is very happy to share his reasons for supporting the alumni network at his school, including the fact that the alumni are the school’s best advertisement and a way to recruit future learners.
ALUMNI STAFF
Many teachers who serve on PEDN partner school alumni committees are former learners themselves, so OB’s and OG’s are also a source of the school’s workforce. One such alumni/ staff member is Catherine. She graduated from her school only a few years ago and came back to work as a librarian.
She has fond memories of her time at the school and still maintains her friendships with other alumni, whom she engages in the school. Catherine has worked hard with other members of the staff to involve the OB’s and OG’s and prepare them as they came to the school and ran various activities, for example giving them advice on how to make the sessions engaging for the kids.
The most common activities that OB’s and OG’s have done during our one year of work are inspirational talks and practical skills session, such as on cooking, tailoring, making sanitary pads or liquid soap. You can find a video of one such session here.
PARENTS
It is the practical skills sessions that Ms. Lydia appreciates the most. She is a mother of 5, and all her kids go to one of our partner schools not too far from Kampala. She has been pushing her fellow committee members since last year to keep the efforts going, seeing the need for the children in this community to learn skills that will in the future help them earn an income, or to relieve some of the pressure on parents to find enough money for school fees.
Parents are a key part of the school community who need to be brought on board to make the alumni networks sustainable. As they pay fees for their children’s education, they need to support the alumni engagement and stand behind the directors’ and teachers’ decision to spend some of their resources to bring the OB’s and OG’s into the curriculum.
Earlier this year, Ugandan government rolled out a new lower secondary school curriculum which gives much more space and emphasis on skills, hopefully paving way for greater alumni engagement in the future.
COMMUNAL WAY OF BEING
As I thought about Ms. Lydia, Catherine, Jackson and the hundreds of committed volunteers who joined the alumni committees at our partner schools, I decided to finally google where the phrase it takes a village to raise a child comes from. If you do the same, you might read that the geographical origins of the proverb are uncertain as many communities and peoples across the African continent capture its essence: the joint social responsibility. It is this communal way of being that underpins the sustainability of alumni networks, as they bring a structure to channel the relationships already present in school communities.