The Uganda Communications Universal Services Access Fund (UCUSAF), formerly known as Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF), is Uganda’s semi-autonomous Universal Service Fund managed and administered by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
Formed in 2003 by an Act of Parliament, UCUSAF is mandated to extend communication services to the unserved and underserved areas of Uganda. The Fund is administered as a semi-autonomous department under UCC, headed by a Director (Fund Manager).
The Fund is run on a five-year strategy and so far, UCUSAF has implemented projects under three strategies: RCDF I (2003-2008), RCDF II (2009-2015) and RCDF III (2017-2021). RCDF I and II focused on Infrastructure Availability, ICT Awareness and Accessibility, and now RCDF III is focusing on Broadband Connectivity and Access, Content and Research and Advocacy.
The Vision is of a Uganda where location, physical inability, gender and cost do not bar any person from harnessing ICT-enabled opportunities for personal empowerment and development.
PROJECTS
The flagship project of UCUSAF is the Integration of ICT into Education. The project is operated through the interventions below:
ICT Computer Laboratories
UCC through UCUSAF has installed ICT computer labs in over 1,000 secondary schools, tertiary institutions and universities. All these schools currently teach the ICT subject either at O-level or/and A-Level. UNEB results have shown a tremendous improvement in ICT performance over the years. An ongoing initiative is now in place to provide these schools with reliable Broadband connectivity. In FY 2018/19, seventy-one (71) schools were handled while 30 out of 55 schools planned for FY2019/20 have so far been taken care of, with the rest to be completed by the end of April 2021. Procurement for another 55 schools for FY2020/21 has been initiated.
Internet Connectivity to Schools
UCUSAF previously provided a dedicated internet link of 256Kbps to over 600 secondary schools but with changes in technology and the development of new services in education, this ceased to be sufficient. In the Financial year 2019/20, UCUSAF partnered with Research and Education Network for Uganda (RENU) and Airtel to provide a dedicated internet connectivity link of up to 5Mbps to 90 schools. Procurement for connectivity to a further 20 schools for FY2020/21 has been initiated.
Virtual Science Content
Under this initiative, the school laboratories supported by UCC are installed with software that enables the schools to access science content with animations for O-level (Physics, Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry). The procurement for this project was done by the Ministry of Education and Sports and UCC supported it with funding. So far, all Government secondary schools supported with UCUSAF computer laboratories have benefitted from this project with 100 schools connected in each of the Financial years 2018/19 and 2019/20 respectively. A further 100 schools are due for installation with the software for FY 2020/21, especially targeting the new seed secondary schools.
Since the commencement of this project, there has been a remarkable improvement in pass rates of science subjects in rural schools, which the Ministry of Education and Sports attributes to this intervention. We are looking into the possibility of expanding the scope of the project to include A-level science content and expand on the subject content at O-Level.
Click on the link below for more details..
https://uccinfo.blog/2021/03/12/brief-on-the-schools-ict-labs-project-executed-by-ucc-ucusaf/