Schooling in Uganda

Schooling in Uganda: Through Children's Eyes was part of a broader research project that looked at the challenges facing primary schools in Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. The project attempted to access the voices of pupils, parents, teachers and policy makers in order to hear a variety of different views about the role of primary education, problems currently being experienced, and ideas about what might be done to address these. According to the organisers, Through Children's Eyes proved a creative and effective way of capturing young children's perspectives.

The book is a series of photographs taken by a group of Ugandan children, from peri-urban schools in Kampala, documenting key components of their schooling experience. The children are all part of a project based at Makerere University called the Minds Across Africa Schools Club project, which promotes children's reading and writing in 150 schools in Kampala. In the last few years there has been a massive expansion in enrolment in primary schools in Uganda.

”The majority of these schools are struggling to provide the basic resources needed to meet this expansion. The photographs in this book document the impact of this change, and record the way in which both staff and students are trying to cope, often with great fortitude and creativity, with the enormous challenges they face.”