Learning is Visual: Activitivities in 2024 and 2025

The first group of master students, 22 students, who started their education in vision in the fall of 2023 have been occupied with their research education and preparations for their master projects since November 2024. Many interesting project proposals were developed before the summer of 2025. They will complete their theses in November this year. During some weeks of their program, the students had group-supervision and individual supervision from HVL through zoom. Twenty of these students received a scholarship from the LiV-project covering the university fees for both years.

The second group of master students started at UDOM in November 2024. The picture 1.1 shows some of the twenty students together with their educator Dr. John Urio from Patandi Teachers’ College of Special Needs Education. John was a PhD-candidate at HVL in the SecEd-project (2017-2021) and an assistant in the LiV-project. He defended his dissertation at HVL in January 2025. He has been responsible for the theoretical and practical education in vision and vision screening of the second group of students at UDOM.

Left picture: The second group of master students in vision at UDom together with Dr. John Urio
Right picture: Exercises of screening each other.

In the practical part of the program the students first screened their vision on each other, picture 1.2, and then finetuned their skills by screening pupils in schools. Afterwards they learned about the principles of vision stimulation, technical support and collaboration with the health system. This part of the program also had a praxis component which was carried out with pupils in schools.

Although there is no more funding, 15 new qualified students will begin their master study in vision in November 2025.

Since 2024 the team at Patandi has been working on integrating the curriculum developed for the CPD-course into the curriculum of the Vision Teachers Education. This work is done in cooperation with Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE). This means that all the 110 students who follow the yearly 2-year-education program will learn much more about children’s visual development than previous cohorts, Picture 2.1. The students are thus better equipped to understand the connection between vision and learning. In addition they will be able to do visual acuity screening at near and distance, evaluate accommodation and convergence and observe different eye-movements. With this insight and competence they will be able to help many children who never got any vision screening or services to reach better learning in schools.

Picture: The first introduction to visual acuity screening for the class of Vision Teachers at Patandi Teachers College, Nov. 2024.

Thirteen in-service vision teachers went through the CPD-course at Patandi in 2023. They all continued teaching following the completing of the course, but they felt it was difficult to do assessment of vision functions in their classes and schools. One reason was the lack of screening tools. Therefore, LEA’s visual acuity charts for near and distance were bought for them and a two-day repetition course in vision screening and stimulation was arranged in May 2025. Also some of the former students from the SecEd-project joined the course.


2.2 Participants from the two-days repetition course in vision screening, May 2025.

2.3 Vice prinsipal Stella Mamuya leading the planning group in Nov, 2024.	2.4 Responsible for the repetition course: Gunvor Wilhelmsen, Stella Mamuya, Mohamed Mgeni and John Urio.

Although the students had been missing equipment for screening some of them had used their knowledge and creativity in their schools. They tried out new methods where little or no equipment is needed and made a lot of stimulation materials themselves. Normally the classrooms are filled with children sitting at their desks all day, but the pictures 2.5 show how differently it is possible to work. Here the vision teacher Ester Michael has arranged a “vision point”, as she calls it, where the pupils can work with colourful material, tiny figures, accommodation exercises and hand-eye activities. This is stimulating for all.



2.5 Eye-hand coordination and accommodation and convergence stimulation from vision teacher Ester’s classroom.

Each year the LiV-project conducted an annual partners’-meeting. In 2021 there was a start-up meeting in Dodoma and many from the administration at UDOM and from the Ministry of Education joined the meeting. The following year the meeting took place in Dar Es Salaam where TIE is located. The third year, in 2023, the partner-meeting was in Arusha so the CPD-students could share their new insight and the challenges they experienced. Through these meetings all partners could follow and influence the processes and development of the project.

In 2024 there was no funding to arrange a partner meeting because the project period was extended from 2024 to 2025. Funds were saved for a final conference, called the End-conference, in 2025. The three partners in Tanzania were responsible for arranging the conference; finding the right location, developing the content and organizing the invitations. Like in 2022, the conference site was Protea Hotel, Courtyard, in Dar es Salaam.

During the two days all partners had presenters who informed about the LiV-activities at their institution, plans for the future or experiences with vision challenges in their work. Also the Regional Special Educational Needs Officer from Dar es Salaam, Jonas Mushumbusi, was present as well as Magreth Matonya who is the Director of Special Educational Needs from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. These leaders and some other participants were interviewed by journalists from Jamvi Media Group who were invited for covering the conference. The videos were presented on Facebook, Instagram and other digital platforms.


3.1 Greetings from the acting principal of the College of Education at UDOM Abdalla Jacob Senyi. He highlighted the importance of the master education for pupils with special needs.	3.2 Greetings from the administration at HVL with Prof. Line Alice Ytrehus.

Other presenters, picture 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5, joined HVL through the SecEd-project and took the course Vision for reading and Learning (30 cred) in 2018 at HVL. Afterwards they all continued with a master degree in vision education and have been actively working in this field these years.


3.3 Jackline Massawe talked about the importance of knowing the vision functions of children with an intellectual impairment.	3.4 Mohamed Mgeni functioned as the academic coordinator for the CPD-course and the LiV-team leader. He explained how the curriculum developed for the CPD-course has changed even the curriculum for ordinary vision teachers’ education at Patandi Teachers College.	3.5 Lossaru Ngira presented his experiences with vision screening of pupils in several schools through four years in an USAID-project in Tanzania. His education from HVL in the SecEd-project was most important for his position there.


3.6 Dr. Alphoncina Pembe and Dr. January Basela are both in the LiV-team at Udom. They presented how the master study program is designed and how they plan to continue with the program after the project period.

3.7 Prof. em. Gunvor B. Wilhelmsen presented about why insight into pupils vision is so important and what kind of learning problems vision challenges might result in.

By participating in the SecEd-project (2017-2021) Tanzania invested in educating vision teachers who were an important source of expertise for the LiV-project. The hope is that vision education, assessment and training will be further developed through the master program at UDom and those who are going to do research in this field.

3.8 Jackline Massawe together with Dr. Ignasia Mligo who is the third member of the Udom-team. Ignasia was also one of the conference moderators.

3.9 Principal Lucian Segela from Patandi Teachers College for Special Needs talked about the influence of the LiV-project on the activities at Patandi.

3.10 The vision teachers Veronica Jeremia and Ester Michael, former CPD-students, invited a mother and daughter to the conference. The girl struggled with vision problems. For some months the vision teacher and mother had stimulated the daughter’s vision. She can now see better and is much more motivated for school work. The mother was so very grateful.

3.11 Five master-students from Udom who presented at the conference. Edna, second from left, and Cosmos, second from right, are both also working at TIE.

3.12 This picture was the master students’ last Power-Point at the Conference.

The conference ended with a panel discussion, picture 3.13, between partners and authorities. They were all eager to develop the new competence further.

3.13 From the panel discussion at the final conference.

The LiV-project was originally established for a three-year-period but had to be extended to four years due to administrative issues between the Ministry of Education and the administration at UDOM.

This meant that funds allocated for 3 years needed to cover a 4^th year. Therefore expenditures had to be highly prioritized. Travel activities for example needed to be reduced much more than originally planned. Thus Prof. Dr. Wilhelmsen always had a very tight teaching schedule when in Tanzania, particularly at the University of Dodoma . The very important resources that helped a lot, were the already qualified staff at Patandi who had completed the 30-credits CPD-course in Vision for Reading and Learning through the SecEd-project (2017-2021) and online teaching sessions with Prof. Dr. Wilhelmsen and project consult Prof. Dr. Felder (University of Applied Sciences Koblenz, Germany) in 2024.

Among those staff at Patandi was John Urio who received a PhD-position for three years at HVL through the SecEd-project. He started this work in Bergen in the fall of 2018. When the LiV-project started up in 2021 he secured a position as a project assistant at HVL within that project. It was a tremendous asset to have a Tanzanian at HVL who could communicate with our partners and national authorities in Swahili and who knew the culture.

John finished his PhD “The Relationship between Some Vision Qualities and Reading. A try-out of visual stimulation and storytelling for better vision skills and reading speed in primary schools in Tanzania” in the autumn of 2024 and defended his dissertation in January 2025, Pictures 4.1.


4.1 John Urio defending his theses at HVL. The committee: Prof. Julius Nyahongo,UDom, Dr. Ieva Kuginyte-Arlauskiene, HVL, and Prof. Emer Ring, University of Limerick, to the very right, together with supervisor Prof. em. Gunvor B. Wilhelmsen.

Together with other tutors at Patandi he was responsible for practical activities at UDOM. The plan and hope is that he will dedicate more of his work time at UDOM to follow the master students and participate in the development of the program. This process has begun and will be essential for the continuation of the master program in vision at UDOM.

Modified 18.12.25