Internship at Office of the Prime Minister, Uganda (Tasneem Ehab)

I conducted an internship at the Department of SDGs, Office of the Prime Minister, Uganda from 2024 February 12 to March 1 under the supervision of Dr. Albert Byamugisha, Senior Technical Advisor, SDGs department at office of the Prime Minister and Chairman, Board of Directors, Uganda Bureau of Statistics with the assistance from Mr. Onesmus Kansiime, Senior Officer, SDG secretariate, office of the prime minister. During the internship, I developed my research about mother tongue education in the context of Uganda by conducting my field research.

I had an introductory meeting with the supervisor regarding the outline of the internship. We agreed on developing the research plan for three weeks accordingly. We agreed on the main purpose of the internship to conduct field research under the supervision of Planning department, Ministry of Education and Sports regarding the Topic, “An Analysis of The Correlation Between Local Language Literacy and Lower Grades’ Students’ Academic Achievements in Uganda”. During my three-weeks-long internship, I could visit three districts in the central part of Uganda: Wakiso, Mukono, Jinja. As planned, I visited two public primary schools. During the schools visits I could distribute my questionnaire to head teachers, teachers, students, and parents. In addition to conducting individual interviews with them, I had the opportunity to attend a school parent meeting and interview parents, I also had the opportunity to attend a seminar discussing the education issues organized by MoES and meet the gender technical advisor in addition to introducing myself and my research area to the audience.

Furthermore, I had the opportunity to connect with Basic Education and Planning Commissioners at the Ministry of Education and Sports and to meet with UNICEF education Specialists to discuss my research interest and deepen my understanding about the policy implementation issues, challenges, and the overall activities of UNICEF in Uganda.

In conclusion, the internship was so insightful and it helped me to improve my research skills. I learned a lot from Dr. Albert and I appreciate his guidance and connections. During the internship, I could understand the actual context of using local language as language of instructionin primary schools in Uganda. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Ogawa for giving me this valuable opportunity, Dr. Albert, and Mr. Onesimus for giving me the time and guidance to help me improve my research plan and accomplishing the internship objectives.

Authored by Tasneem Ehab (Master’s Student)