Invisible Children

General Overview

THE PROGRAM

The S4S program emerged from our overarching goal to raise the standards of secondary education in northern Uganda. The projects under the S4S umbrella encourage academic excellence not only within students, but also, on a much larger scale, excellence within their schools. By delving to the root of local development issues and improving education holistically from the ground up, we are able to help improve the quality of education in the region through a variety of implementation practices.

BACKGROUND ON EDUCATION IN NORTHERN UGANDA

Northern Uganda’s education standards have not always been so low. Prior to the war, at least five of Uganda’s top ten schools were located in the North; today there is not one school from the entire region in the top one hundred.

After Uganda’s Millennium Goal of Universal Primary Education was introduced, many organizations began to focus their efforts solely on primary schools. The lack of attention given to secondary schools has made the pursuit of higher education even more difficult for students and teachers. Invisible Children recognized this gap and was determined to help reconstruct the former top government-registered secondary schools across the districts of Gulu, Amuru, Nwoya, and Pader in northern Uganda.

Schools for Schools is one of the most comprehensive education programs in the region. By rebuilding and strengthening 11 of the most promising secondary schools in the North, we are looking beyond the temporary fix of simply putting kids in classrooms, and instead are focusing on providing sustainable access to quality education at a nationally competitive level.

OUR SCHOOLS FOR SCHOOLS DEVELOPMENT PHILOSOPHY

Invisible Children's development philosophy for S4S revolves around long-term, sustainable ways for secondary schools to continue raising the bar of education in the North. The program uses grassroots principles, engaging community involvement on all decisions concerning how funds are spent at each school. Through Invisible Children-supported School Development Committees, those benefiting directly from the implementation projects—students, teachers, parents, members of the administration and the Board of Governors, as well as local government officials—sit and discuss what they feel a school needs most to improve its learning environment.

These groups are responsible for developing a list of project priorities for each school within ICU's five target areas of implementation: construction of facilities, water and sanitation, supply of scholastic materials, teacher capacity development, and the introduction of new technologies. The committee's ongoing involvement in each implementation round provides opportunities to understand the many educational needs and obstacles at each school. With their input, we are able to continually tailor our efforts to meet each school's specific requests and ensure that the funds are spent in the most effective way possible.

One of the most important decisions we’ve ever made was deciding which Ugandan secondary schools we would partner with. After developing extensive selection criteria, we initially chose 10 institutions we believed showed the greatest potential for change and improvement. In lieu of completing just a few projects at a large number of institutions, we kept our partner schools to a minimum, with the intention of providing each school with individualized support. Four of the original 10 schools we chose had been displaced by the conflict for years, with one school, Awere, being displaced for a decade and a half. To date, the S4S program has helped three of these four institutions return to their original school sites. The 11th school added to the program—Keyo Secondary School—joined the S4S family in 2009.