The project, submitted by the Luigi Giussani Institute of Higher Education (LGIHE), aimed at improving the quality of Catholic Education in Uganda, particularly to accompany Heads of schools, teachers, parents and students’ leaders on the educational path. The objective was to enable all the parties involved to collaborate and rediscover the value of the Catholic Education that awakens their own value as a fundamental element for any true and sustainable development. These participants were selected as project beneficiaries in the belief that: parents are the first and primary educators of their children; teachers are the immediate collaborators that parents have chosen for the educational path of their children, and the school Head teachers are the professional custodians of the educational programs within the schools. Teachers (including Head teachers) play an ‘accompanying role’ in the education of the child in order to ‘bring out’ his/her inherent potentials. Besides, it is critically important that teachers clearly and comprehensively understand the overall Catholic mission in education, as it comes from the Christian anthropology on the human person. Teachers were thus awakened to realize that each step in the teaching process is educative, in the sense that it should engage learners in a form that enable them to satisfy their true human desires and aspirations.
Students need to be consciously aware of who they are, where they came from and their own destiny and why they are in school. They should be strengthened on leadership skills and involved in the verification of their career path. Their involvement deepens self-awareness as well as translates to employment of relevant skills.
The project aimed to create an educating community that is prepared to educate the young from the ontological and epistemological points of view.
The specific objectives were as follows:
1. Enabling school leaders and teachers to re-discover the value and pertinence of Catholic social teaching and educational principles in fulfilling their schools’ mission.
2. Providing Missionary /permanent formation and support to Ugandan Catholic schools in rediscovering the meaning of education.
The training focused on the themes: the meaning and purpose of education; the human person in relation to the lived human experience; the role of a teacher in accompanying the young; critical thinking; and education to freedom.
The training was meant to introduce teachers to the understanding that education is a journey towards self-discovery and self-awareness as starting point towards understanding the meaning of things. The teacher’s role is that of accompanying the young towards the realization of their infinite destiny as opposed to merely equipping them with notions. It focused on human life as a vocation to which each person is called to and the work of the teacher is to help the student in responding to this call; moreover with human freedom.
