Women and Girls, Education and Work in Uganda’s Complex Context

About

Important note: This summer school takes place in African Rural University (ARU), Kagadi, Uganda

The transition from education to work is not straightforward for girls and women, especially in Uganda and similar contexts. Girls and women juggle triple roles in life: in work, family, and society. Education should not only prepare them to work but also to lead a healthy family and contribute to society as active citizens.

How are they prepared to play these roles? Do they learn how to develop a career, do they learn about reproductive health, are they invited to contribute to the community? Are developments such as digitalisation and lifelong learning taken on board? What can we learn from their life stories? How can Participatory Action Research serve to develop appropriate support? This summer school will explore these and more questions and dilemmas.

This summer school is following up on the previous one on Women-Led Change: Community Engagement and Rural Development in Uganda at African Rural University (ARU). ARU is an all women university which implements a unique transformative curriculum driven by a visionary approach and practice-based pedagogics. From the very start of their studies, students are trained to play a role in the community. ARU is part of a larger educational institute also comprising primary and secondary education.

This is the perfect environment to jointly explore our theme in on-campus sessions and fieldwork in the surrounding communities. We will collect life stories of girls and women and reflect on them to analyse and collectively design ways in which education can support their development in a meaningful way.

Course leader

Josje van der Linden (Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Groningen )

Target group

The summer school is designed for students, lecturers, researchers, practitioners (of any gender).

It is expected that the participants have a sufficient command of the English language to actively participate in the discussions and to present their own work in English.

Course aim

Learning outcomes
After completing the summer school, the participants will be able to:
- Formulate contextualised insights on Women and girls education-work transition in Uganda;
- Demonstrate participatory action research fieldwork and communication practices in respect to women and girls education and work.
- Interact meaningfully with fellow participants from different (cultural) backgrounds

Workload
- Preparation: 6 hours (preparing and attending 2 online sessions)
- Lectures, group work, field work: 42 hours (5 full days)
- Presentations: 8 hours (1 full day)

Upon successful completion of the programme, the Summer School offers a Certificate of Attendance that mentions the workload of 56 hours (28 hours corresponds to 1 ECTS). Students can apply for recognition of these credits to the relevant authorities in their home institutions, therefore the final decision on awarding credits is at the discretion of their home institutions. We will be happy to provide any necessary information that might be requested in addition to the certificate of attendance.

Fee info