INFLUENCE OF SCHOOL OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT ON QUALITY ASSURANCE IN PRIVATE CATHOLIC CHURCH FOUNDED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KAMPALA ARCHDIOCESE, UGANDA

The study examined the influence of school operations management on quality assurance in Catholic Church founded secondary schools in Kampala Archdiocese in Uganda. The Embedded design guided the design. The school operations were studied in terms of lean operations, monitoring and target management. Self-administered questionnaires (SAQ), an interview guide, a focused group discussion guide, and an observation checklist were used as data collection instruments. Research instruments were subjected to both content and construct validity. Cronbach’s alpha was used to measure the internal consistency of items in the questionnaire while credibility and dependability were used to determine reliability of the qualitative instruments. Quantitative data analysis involved descriptive statistics and inferential analysis. Descriptive analysis was done using frequencies, and percentages. Inferential statistics used chi-square test for association to test the hypotheses. Qualitative data analysis was done using thematic and content analyses. Findings revealed that quality assurance in the schools was good as well as implementation of operations management. Pearson Chi-Square analysis revealed that operations management had a positive and significant influence on quality assurance in schools. It was concluded that essential quality assurance elements in schools include teacher quality, teaching quality, curriculum quality and facilities quality. School operations management is imperative for implementation of quality assurance in private Catholic Church founded secondary schools. Therefore, it was recommended that stakeholders involved in the management of private catholic church founded secondary schools such as head teachers, Boards of Governors, the Archdiocese Education Secretariat, District Education Officials and Ministry of Education should ensure that quality assurance is maintained by ensuring that in the schools, there are quality teachers, teaching quality, a curriculum of quality and quality facilities quality. The head teachers and Boards of Governors in the schools should give priority to school operations management. Article visualizations

Practices of Luganda Language Educators in Using Emerging Technologies at the School of Education, Makerere University

The study explored practices of Luganda language educators at the School of Education, Makerere University in using emerging technologies. The study analyzed the practices of Luganda language educators in using emerging technologies; identified the emerging technologies used in Luganda language instruction; and established the factors influencing the practices of Luganda language educators in emerging technologies. The study paradigm was interpretivism with a case design. The study participants were purposively selected Luganda language teacher educators and conveniently sampled students specializing in Luganda Language as one of the teaching subjects. Data were collected using interview guide, focused group discussion guide and observation check list and analyzed using thematic content data analysis technique. Findings revealed that Luganda language educators practiced use of emerging technologies, such as Zoom and Google meet apps, MUELE platform, mails, Telegrams, WhatsApp, laptops, smart phones as well as computers, among others for lectures through sharing learning material with learners, providing feedback, conducting online assessment, and conducting lectures via the online platforms. The study concluded that Luganda teacher educators practiced emerging technologies to teach, send materials, course works, and submission of course works and assessment and grading of learners. Luganda teacher educators practiced emerging technologies through preparation for teaching, selection of Luganda content and teaching aids. The study concluded that the most practiced emerging technologies during Luganda language teaching were the moodle system in form of MUELE, video conferencing, Zoom, and Google meet and WhatsApp, Facebook, and Youtube, among others. The study also concluded that the factors influencing practices of Luganda language teachers were; favorable University policy, availability of electric power, internet connectivity, availability of merging technological tools such as smart mobile phones, pads, laptops and or computers, among others, as well as use of offline platforms, such as distributing class notes via CDs and flash disks for use on online computers. From the study findings, the study recommends that Luganda language educators should adopt, apply and maintain excellent practices with use of the emerging technologies. This could be done through encouragement of online lectures via platforms such as MUELE; they should also continuously upload academic material on online platforms such as Whatsapp, hold academic engagements / sessions via google meet, conduct online assessment and provide feedback to learners online. Such practices will not only improve their skills with emerging technologies, but shall also deepen their knowledge as well as shape a positive attitude and adoption of emerging technologies for effective Luganda language teaching and learning. Keywords: Practices, Emerging Technologies, Luganda Language Educators DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-2-07 Publication date: January 31st 202

CHALLENGES OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT IN IMPLEMENTATION OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN PRIVATE CATHOLIC CHURCH FOUNDED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KAMPALA ARCHDIOCESE, UGANDA

The study examined the challenges of school management in implementation of quality assurance in private Catholic Church founded secondary schools in Kampala Archdiocese, Uganda. A mixed method research particularly embedded design guided the study. The study involved all head teachers, teachers, students, Inspectors of schools and, the Diocesan Education Secretary in Kampala Archdiocese. Non probability sampling especially purposive sampling techniques were used to select a sample size of 11 head teachers, 120 students, 5 Inspectors of the directorate of education standards and 1 Education Diocesan Secretary. Probability sampling involved the use of proportionate sampling technique to select 11 schools and 312 teachers to take part in the study. Data collection instruments that were used were a self-administered questionnaire, an interview guide, a focused group discussion guide, and an observation checklist. Research instruments were subjected to both content and construct validity. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine reliability of the questionnaire while credibility and dependability were used to determine reliability of the qualitative items. Quantitative data was analysed by cleaning, coding and keying in computer Statistical Package for Social Sciences software version 21 to generate frequencies and percentages that summarized data. Qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. Ethics in research were observed throughout the process. Key findings showed that the schools studied have many challenges in implementing quality assurance. The major challenge experienced especially by poor schools was funding with its associated challenges such as teaching resources, student-teacher ratio and workload of teachers. However, professionalism of teachers, their quality, professional development and empowerment, supervision/evaluation, existence of quality assurance/ control units, attention to a culture of quality and top management in schools, lacking commitment and belief in quality assurance were not serious challenges in the implementation of quality assurance in the schools. Therefore, it was concluded that only funding and its resulting challenges such as inadequacy of teaching resources, student-teacher ratio and workload of teachers pose a challenge in the implementation of quality assurance especially for the poor schools. Thus, it was recommended that head teachers, boards of governors, and the Archdiocese Education Secretariat should make effort to put in place measures besides students’ tuition fees to enable even poor private schools implement quality assurance easily. Article visualizations

ALTERNATIVE FINANCING MECHANISMS OF CHURCH-FOUNDED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN UGANDA

Alternative financing mechanisms of church-founded secondary schools in Uganda geared towards mitigating the repercussions of financial resource scarcity in church-founded schools is an ongoing debate among denominational school stakeholders. This study analyzes the extent to which the schools are grappling with possible mechanisms to bridge their financing gap. The findings are a result of a cross sectional survey of what the various church-founded school stakeholders suggest to be the possible Alternative financing mechanisms of church-founded secondary schools in Uganda. It was concluded that most of the students, teachers, head teachers and education secretariat officials revealed that School-generated businesses such as school farms, alumni associations as well as soliciting for funding partners who share in the mission of the Church are the most appropriate Alternative financing mechanisms for Church Founded Schools in Uganda.   Article visualizations

Challenges to quality primary and secondary education in Uganda

A ZJER survey on the challenges of quality education in Uganda's primary and secondary schools.The survey and discussion focus on the challenges to quality education in Uganda. It is over 136 years since formal education was introduced in Uganda by the Christian Missionaries in 1877 and 1879. These were Anglican and Roman Catholic Missionaries respectively. Given the plethora of implicit and explicit challenges faced by the entire education system and its products, it is evident that the system has not fully played its role in transforming Uganda into a country which the inceptors of education hoped it would edify. The survey was carried out in Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern Uganda. Data was collected using questionnaires and observation check lists. A cross sectional survey design involved 5 primary and 5 secondary schools in each region; key stakeholders namely District Education Officers (DEOS), inspectors of schools, Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) officials, and parents. Data collected was analysed using percentages and some salient qualitative statements recorded. The findings revealed that although there has been a significant rise in student and pupil numbers both in primary and secondary schools, the entire primary and secondary education sub-systems are riddled with many challenges. The challenges are looked at from the sociological, economic and philosophical dimensions. It was therefore recommended that there is need to overhaul the entire education system in terms of pedagogical and non-pedagogical over-heads in the schools

Discourse on the values transmitted in universities Uganda

For a long time, the suitability of the knowledge and values offered in African universities has been a matter of notable controversy, especially in the context of liberalization of university education. This paper reports the findings of a study that was conducted to contribute to discussion on the subject. The study delved into the values transmitted in Universities in Uganda. Data were collected from a sample of 850 respondents who were drawn from faith-based, for–profit and public universities in the country. It was found that material, social/ public, personal and religious values are transmitted to students in the selected universities. This finding is discussed with the conclusion that a valueconstrained university arena is a recipe for many counter values and does not promote true university education.Keywords: Philosophy of higher education; Liberalisation; Curriculum refor

Reflections on the philosophy behind the different universities in Uganda

Increasingly, university education in Uganda is becoming very popular. Before 1992, discussing university education in Uganda and for most of Sub Saharan Africa was not very difficult because there were few universities. The liberalization and introduction of the private sponsoring scheme in public universities, emergence of the denominational, for-profit and community private universities have all made discussing university education problematic. Though the Uganda government white paper on education 1992, gives the basic principles which must guide all levels of education in Uganda, the lack of a clear and uniform philosophy informing and guiding the different universities creates a plethora of challenges to the debate of the philosophy of education behind the different universities in Uganda. This paper using a descriptive case study research design tries to identify the underlying philosophical underpinning behind the different universities in Uganda. These include: public, religious or denominational, the for-profit and cultural oriented universities. The paper concludes that different universities in Uganda draw their philosophy of education from their founding body's rationale for providing university education. It is also concludes that there seem to be no unifying philosophical underpinning for the entire university system in Uganda. It can also be concluded that, unlike public, for-profit and cultural or community universities, denominational universities seem have a more refined and specific philosophy of education

The dilemma of teacher professionalism and commitment in Roman Catholic founded secondary schools in Uganda

This article examines the issue of teacher professionalism and teacher commitment in Catholic founded secondary schools in Uganda. Using 15 "Elite" Roman Catholic Secondary Schools, the study tries to establish the mortifiers of professionalism and commitment in catholic secondary schools in Kampala Arch-Diocese, Uganda. The paper concludes that there are factors outside the Catholic school set up such as the socio and economic constraints and intrinsic factors within the Roman Catholic school system which create challenges to teacher professionalism and commitment such as lack of orientation of teachers and school administrators into Roman Catholic philosophy of education

Philosophical Identities in the ‘Market’ for University Education in Uganda

This study examines the metaphysics and political philosophy behind market competition for Uganda’s university education. Using grounded theory to filter the voices of 12 participants, the first phase of the study, which was qualitative, revealed that a rival (contestable) market of university education in Uganda has three challenges: funding, low research capacity and deregulation. In the second phase of the study, a quantitative study involving 180 participants finds that resource mobilization, financial audit compliance, grant writing, bursaries and loan facilities for students would help to minimize the market challenge. Subsequently, the paper examines the philosophy behind the market of university education. This is with the conclusion that this philosophy is part of the problem affecting university education in the country. More governmental control—to contain the challenges deregulation has posed—is urged

A Discourse Analysis of Teacher-Trainees’ Abstract Conceptualizations of Emerging Technologies in Teaching to Revitalise Luganda Language

While many young learners of the 21st century have grown up with, and generally prefer to learn using Emerging Technologies (ETs), a few teachers of Luganda language graduate with learning experiences of integrating ETs in their teaching. One of the most crucial stages of gaining experiences in any subject or object of interest is making Abstract Conceptualizations (ACs) about it (Kolb, 1984). Whereas scaffolding ACs has potential to expand teacher’s knowledge of integrating ETs in teaching, it is difficult to enact in a pedagogically sound manner. This paper emerges from a Design Based Research in which 68 Luganda language teacher-trainees at Makerere University were enrolled into a semester-long (17 weeks) blended learning course aimed at cultivating their experiences of integrating ETs in teaching. The study was informed by Kolb (1984)’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and Reeves (2006)’s model of conducting research in authentic e-learning contexts. Six distinct abstract conceptualisations of ETs emerged from trainees’ responses. This paper discusses the implications of such abstract conceptualization in the revitalisation of Luganda language