Learn to Play, Play to Learn

Play is an established human right for children, recognized under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) of 1989; the right to play is in essence what distinguishes childhood from adulthood. Through play, children create new learning experiences, and these self-created experiences enable them to acquire social, emotional, and intellectual skills they could not acquire in any other way (Elkins 2008)

In 2007, the Ugandan government’s Ministry of Education and Sports introduced the Thematic Curriculum for primary schools in a direct attempt to provide children with a more diverse curriculum and a more child-centered learning experience. They felt this would help improve the quality of education for children and help stem high rates of absenteeism and drop-out. The curriculum was well researched and intentioned but its implementation has fallen short. By the

Ministry’s own assessment of its seven pilot schools, they have not introduced and maintained the curriculum to include areas such as play, music and art. Teachers continue to focus on what they consider the main subjects: Literacy, Writing and Mathematics. Research carried out by

TWEP’s Education Manager in two schools in the Kampala District confirm these government

findings.

The time for children to play and the opportunity to be self directed in their learning lies in the hands of teachers. Government directives on curriculum and methods have largely failed to change teachers’ beliefs about learning, teaching methods and curriculum design .

TWEP supports teachers develop their understanding of learning, develop the skills to manage Free Play,

We moblise and train teachers in resource /play material production to deliver Free Play

We also expose to teachers and parents the benefits for young learners that have participated in play during play sessions with the support of our qualified and experience early childhood development professionals .

And so far in the in the seven schools 7

They will see learners that are happier,

more motivated, have learned to be more cooperative and are able to be more responsible and

receptive to working in different groups and with different methods. Teachers need to be given

time to see for themselves that other methods of teaching are possible and be given the skills to

test them out and adopt new techniques. The Learn to Play, Play to Learn program will give

teachers the support, training, skills and time to develop and adopt new approaches to learning,

new teaching techniques and methods. Early results form our pilot school are already showing

that teachers and parents are seeing for themselves the overwhelmingly positive impact that

time for Play has on children’s learning and cooperation and happiness!

Overview