Promotion of Healthy Nutrition Knowledge through Project-Based Learning of Nutrition and Food Technology: Case of Secondary Schools in Uganda

More than 340 million children and adolescents are overweight or obese with the prevalence increasing and expected to double among boys and more than double among girls by 2035. Using school curricula to promote authentic learning of nutrition is one sure low-cost way to combat the increasing rates of overweight and obesity. In Uganda, the Ministry of Education and Sports developed the Nutrition and Food Technology subject at secondary level to equip learners with optimal nutrition knowledge. The NFT syllabus emphasizes authentic learning of the subject through Project Based learning (PBL) using guidelines provided by the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) in 2021. Since PBL is newly being implemented in NFT in Uganda, there is uncertainty about how PBL promotes knowledge of healthy nutrition among secondary school learners. This was a qualitative cross-sectional survey that involved 12 secondary schools that offered NFT. Data was collected from NFT learners using self-administered open-ended questionnaires, from project group leaders using focus group discussions and from NFT teachers using key informant. Data was analyzed using ATLAS.ti 8. Results show that during NFT projects, learners mostly make unhealthy food products with a lot of added sugar, wheat, margarine and oil. Also, the majority of the reasons behind their choice of ingredients instead of being based on nutritional quality and healthiness of ingredients, are rather on making products of high sensory appeal for example used sugar to make cakes sweet and tasty, used butter and margarine to make the product soft, used baking powder to keep the product long and make it big among others. The nutrition knowledge focused on in Projects in Nutrition and Food Technology in secondary schools in Uganda is mostly on how to make palatable products of high shelf-life than knowledge of healthy nutrition. We recommend development of Project based learning resources to support food technology teachers in incorporation of knowledge of healthy nutrition in school classroom projects.