Internship at Ministry of Education and Sports of Uganda (Asuka YASUOKA)

During the summer of 2013, I conducted internship at the Ministry of education and sports (MoES) in Uganda for 6 weeks. My objective in the course of the internship was collecting and analyzing data relevant to my research topic. While in the MoES, I belonged to the Education Planning and Policy Analysis Department.

I was able to review key national documents regarding education development in Uganda including the Education and Sports Sector Annual Performance Reports and Statistical Abstracts. These documents enabled me to make good progress with my research. In addition to the above documents, I was also able to get and review more documents from Secondary Education Department, especially those related to science education. While in the Secondary Education Department, I visited the Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers’ (SESEMAT) unit. This unit is charged with the responsibility of improving the quality of science and math education learning outcomes, with funding from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Since my research topic is about Science education performance at secondary education, this was a very good experience for me. I interacted with both local science educational specialists and JICA specialists, and discussed with them a lot about SESEMAT, as well as the teaching and learning of science subjects at secondary level of education in Uganda.

Through this internship I learned firsthand the difficulties of collecting both primary and secondary data. The difficulties I encountered include; a lot of time and formalities were needed to get data and total lack of data that I expected to get. All these affected my research progress as per my plan in Japan. I realized that I have to set up my research plan bearing in mind potential future difficulties and challenges. However, despite these difficulties I learned a lot from this internship experience which could not be possible in Japan. I was able to meet and interact with many wonderful persons through the internship. As can be seen, my internship in MoES was precious opportunity for my research and future career.

I wish to express my deepest gratitude towards my academic supervisor, Prof. Keiichi Ogawa who gave me such a great opportunity. I also would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to Mr. Joseph Eilor, who is an Assistant Commissioner in the Education Planning and Policy Analysis Department for his kind support and guidance, as well as all the people who supported me in the course of this internship.