Phil Hawkins

In April 2026, Aprender had the privilege of welcoming a team of MBA students from Cambridge Judge Business School to Uganda as part of the University of Cambridge Global Consulting Project. Their visit was far more than an academic exercise. It was an opportunity to test assumptions, gather evidence, challenge thinking and explore how high-quality teacher development can be scaled sustainably in low-resource environments. Working alongside Aprender, local partner The Jinja Education Trust,...

Across the world, education systems face an urgent challenge: millions of children are in school but not learning. Research from global education bodies consistently points to one critical factor at the heart of this issue — teacher quality . While classrooms, textbooks, and technology all play a role, evidence shows that the single most important in-school driver of student learning is a well-trained, supported teacher. At Aprender, this evidence shapes everything we do. What the research...

Meet Joy, a teacher in St Patrick Primary School in Jinja, Uganda. Jinja is a city in the Eastern Region of Uganda , located on the north shore of Lake Victoria . The biggest local employer is the Kakira Sugar Works (KSW), a member of the Madhvani Group of companies. KSW is one of the largest sugar factories in East Africa, employing over 7,500. The factory burns bagasse byproducts from sugar manufacturing to generate 50 megawatts of electricity for internal use and sale to the...