Education Uganda Project #32575

Implement Active Learning in Schools Across Uganda

by The African SOUP, Inc.

Implement Active Learning in Schools Across Uganda

Project Report | Nov 6, 2025
Active Learning at The African SOUP

By Rahel Girmay | Chief Development Officer

Photo by Guglielmo Magagna

A heartfelt thank you!

Because of your generosity, teachers across Namutumba district in Uganda are gaining the practical skills to make classrooms lively, inclusive, and learner centered. Your support is accelerating a national shift from rote memorization to active learning and children are feeling the difference every day. Thank you for standing with educators and learners as we build stronger schools together.

What your gift made possible in 2025 so far

District wide reach in Namutumba: We continued a full district rollout of the Active Learning Project (ALP) across 109 government primary schools, reinforcing school-based coaching and termly Continuous Professional Development (CPD) workshops for teachers and head teachers.
669 educators trained this year: This includes 384 in service teachers, 87 head teachers, 45 tutors, 130 Diploma in Education (DEP) student teachers, and 23 SOUP School teachers who also serve as peer trainers. Through additional mentoring and mini CPDs, total educators reached rose to 852.
From training to classroom practice: In classroom observations, 53% of a representative sample of trained teachers demonstrated the 5E instructional model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate), up from 41% last year. This is a strong sign that training is translating into better everyday teaching.
Teacher education pipeline: Our partnership with Bishop Willis Teacher Training Institute (BWTTI) remains a cornerstone. Over time, 400 student teachers and 30 tutors have been trained in active learning practices, ensuring that new teachers enter schools ready to engage learners.
Stronger student outcomes: At The SOUP School, our demonstration lab, 100% of Primary Seven candidates in 2024 achieved Division I or II on the national Primary Leaving Examination, a performance we are striving to sustain in 2025.
Whole child impact beyond the classroom: Your support also strengthens our broader ecosystem: 815 learners are enrolled at The SOUP School (55% girls), 1,255 community members accessed maternal-child health and family services through Emma’s Baby SOUP in 2025, and 90 secondary scholars are moving forward, including nine who recently entered university. These wrap around supports help learners thrive and stay in school.

How classrooms are changing

Teachers and school leaders describe concrete shifts: richer lesson planning, more student voice, peer-to-peer coaching, and stronger relationships among teachers, learners, and parents. Educators report that students are more confident, participate widely, and show better problem solving and presentation skills, clear hallmarks of active learning.

At the teacher training level, BWTTI tutors highlight how active learning methods, group work and trainee led presentations are building both content mastery and pedagogy. This approach feeds the national pipeline with teachers who are ready to lead dynamic, student centered lessons from day one.

Partnership and systems change

Government alignment: We continued structured collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) and district authorities. A draft MoU with the Teacher Education and Training Department is under review to formalize accreditation pathways and strengthen joint monitoring of classroom practice.
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL): We refined our observation tool for faster, higher quality feedback during school visits and are strengthening pre-/post-testing and attendance tracking to better capture teacher growth and learner impact.
Community of practice: The ALP now regularly convenes educators to share best practices and celebrate champions of active learning, reinforcing motivation and peer learning across the district.

What is next

Annual ALP Conference (late November 2025): We are preparing our largest convening yet on The SOUP campus to showcase best practices, celebrate teacher champions, and deepen policy level engagement.
Policy and accreditation: We will continue advancing MoUs with MoES and teacher education bodies to embed active learning within national standards, expanding the model’s durability and scale.

With gratitude from The African SOUP team and the educators you empower every day.

Links:

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Dec 4, 2018
Active Learning Project Update

By Alison Wilson | US Executive Director

Sep 7, 2018
Active Learning Update

By Emma Goldbas | Project Manager, Active Learning Project

Thank you for your continued interest in The African SOUP’s Active Learning Project. Your interest has helped to progress active learning as a methodology in 20 primary schools in Eastern Uganda since 2014. Not only has our team been spearheading on-site supervision, demonstration lessons and technical support to our partnering schools, many of our schools have been noted in their respective districts as “model schools.” Last month, the head teacher of Kakumbi Primary School in Luuka District, a rural government school, received visitors from the District Education Office, the local arm of the Ministry of Education, to explore the ways in which he and his team have mobilized locally sourced materials to make hundreds of learning aids to be used in classrooms for primary school pupils. This initiative from Kakumbi was ignited after the Active Learning Team conducted a series of trainings on how to incorporate and utilize the environment in teaching. Due to the fact that many schools in Uganda are underfunded and lack teaching materials, our team has found ways of encouraging teachers to interact and use the environment as a fundamental teaching aid.

In the same month, The African SOUP Nursery and Primary School received visitors from three organizations from Malawi that had traversed East of Africa to visit our rural school to identify best practices and observe our active classrooms and style of teaching. The three teams of visitors took many notes and were excited to return to their organizations and implement some of the lessons learned from our school notably the handmade learning aids, demonstration gardens and the approach of holistic teaching.

Our project has reached over 500 educators in Uganda since the inauguration of the project whose switch from imploring active teaching instead of rote memorization and lecture methods have impacted over 10,000 students. The next phase for our team will be to expand our interventions into 10 new government schools in 2020 as we work on sustaining the active learning culture in our existing partner schools next year. As well, in January 2019 our team will be beginning a supplementary methods course at a Primary Teacher’s College where we will reach 350 teachers in training by targeting six identified themes to implant the necessity for active learning to be a culture in the prospective schools and classrooms.

Thank you for your interest and contributions to The African SOUP. Your efforts are helping children and communities survive and thrive through quality education.

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