Peace Education in Uganda: Educators' Perceptions of a Peace Education Curriculum

In recent years, educators and non-governmental organisations have hastily developed school-based peace education programs to mitigate school violence observed to be a manifestation of armed conflicts. While most of these programs have been successfully introduced in schools; few attempts to document and understand these efforts exist. This study aims to research educators’ perceptions of the nature of the Ugandan school-based peace building initiative. The report is a qualitative investigation, utilizing a case study focus group, in-depth interview approach and document analysis. The case study involved educators in Uganda who were trained in implementation of the Ugandan Peace Education Program since its inception. Twenty-three educators participated in the In-depth Interviews while four former program managers took part in the Focus Group conference. The Focus Group and In-depth Interviews helped to build the synopsis of perceptions, beliefs, and practises of the 27 participants. The resulting profiles coupled with a comprehensive literature review assisted in answering four research questions: Is the Ugandan school-based peace building intervention being effectively implemented by educators? Is the program meeting its goals and objectives? What are the teacher’s perceptions of the program so far? Do teachers have any suggestions on how to improve implementation? The results uncovered several emerging themes including: educators recognizing that the program is beneficial and making a difference, teacher transfers are undermining the program’s stability in most schools, educators are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the current level of support and training they are receiving, and teachers are experiencing significant challenges integrating the program with other subjects. The study acknowledged that although there is much optimism among Ugandan educators about the future of the program, there are concerns about the current practice which may diminish the success of the intervention. The study recommends review of the program’s overall implementation strategies, and suggests direct support to teachers by expanding training and retraining workshops and making available sufficient learning resources to schools. Suggestions for policy development and further research that takes into account the students’ attitudes regarding violence and their perceptions of the usefulness of the intervention.