THE BEGINNING

CONCEPT PAPER FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES/ EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE CENTERS PROJECT IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION OF AFRICA (GLRA) UNDER THE NAME OF JJAGGWE FOUNDATION PUBLIC LIBRARY-EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER

(JFPL-ERC):

Why Jjagwe Foundation has come to intervene through establishing Public Libraries/ Educational Resource Centers in the Great Lakes Region of Africa (GLRA) and elsewhere in Africa:

Based and piloted in Uganda then later to cover the Great Lakes’ region. In Uganda the recent (2012) release of final annual results of Primary Leaving Examinations for Primary Seven pupils (PLE), Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) for Senior Four (S4) and those of Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) for Senior Six (S6) students shows low performance. The results are released by the Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB). There is very drastic number of school drop-outs from most educational institutions in Uganda. This is caused by a number of factors, among them: lack of available learning materials; poor or low access to sources of text book information and; computer services in most educational institutions in Uganda. This is on top of other structural set-backs.

In 2012, a sample survey carried out revealed the following: In 1996 a total of 1,700,000 pupils were enrolled in Primary One (PI) class. After a period of seven years, only 560,000 were able to register for Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE). Of the 560,000 only 540,000 joined senior level schools. This shows that 1,200,000 to have dropped out from schools for the last seven years (1996-2012).

560,000 were admitted for SI in 2007 but at the end of the four years of study only around 250,000 were able to complete for their senior four (4) in 2010. A total of 198,000 were admitted for Higher Secondary Education (S5-S6). By the end of their two's years' studies, only 111,000 were able to register for their UACE. 109,000 were able to successfully complete their studies to join Tertiary Learning institutions.  In a nutshell, from 1996 to 2012 those who started Primary One, only 109,000 were able to successfully complete their education circle of twelve years, leaving a drop-out of over 1,600,000 students!

Jjaggwe Foundation, advocates the following as one of the solutions to adopt: Register Jjaggwe Foundation as a non-profit and non-partisan entity; invest in Vocational-Technical institutes and; establishment of both the traditional and Digital Libraries synergy to solve one of the major challenges of Education in the Great Lakes Region of Africa (GLRA).

Advantages of Digital Libraries’ establishment:

i) Easier to locate desired information.

ii) The information is always available and accessible unlike in traditional Libraries where books can be borrowed out or destroyed by users.

iii) Enable students and other users have access to information that improves on their skills.

iv)Provision of variety and choices in form of: journals, magazines and so on to the users.