Are schools exploiting parents with their back-to-school lists?

Victoria Najjulu was forced to transfer her daughter to a different school before she completed Senior Four due to what she referred to as ‘weird’ requirements that the school was asking the students to bring.

Among other things, the school demanded four kgs of baking flour, three kgs of rice, two mops, a slasher and two hoes from each student all in the name of enhancing learning in Agriculture, food and nutrition. “I tried interfacing with the school administration on many occasions about why they needed all these things every term but they told me students had to go for practicals in Agriculture, and food and nutrition. I could not handle this anymore,” she says.

Najjulu is among the many parents who dread back-to-school time and find it one of the most challenging days in the life of most parents.

Samuel Kiganda, a resident of Kyengera-Masanda, says he withdrew his son from secondary education after his second term in Senior One to a vocational institution where he was sure they would put what he bought to honest use and not “the get rich scheme by most secondary school heads”.

“I would spend a lot of money in buying squeezers, toilet brushes, hoes and Music Dance and Drama costumes every term. I did not even see them utilised at any point. I have a feeling the school authorities were selling them,” he laments.

Justification
Solomon Nkuke, a head teacher at Blessed Hands Secondary School in Kampala, says a school drafts requirements basing on what they think they need to enhance the learning of the students.

“We obviously cannot ask them to bring test tubes because the school can provide these in the laboratory. We believe maintaining a school is a collective responsibility of the parent and the administration. So, if we ask for certain requirements from the parents, I do not find it a problem in any way,” he says adding that his school asks for a hoe and a slasher to keep the compound clean.

Nkuke says the requirements are used by the students at school and the allegations that the schools sell them off at the end of the term are not true. “Students are the very ones who waste and spoil these things and having the entire school bring these helps us to cover up that shortage. We have faced criticism for long over these requirements but we will stand our ground,” he asserts.

Use right channels
Incidentally, Dr Tony Mukasa, the assistant commissioner Primary Education in the Ministry of Education, says although there is no documentation about what requirements schools should ask of students, schools are not allowed to ask students to bring slashers, hoes, cement and the like.

“The Education Act is very clear that before one establishes a school, they must have the operational resources in place.

Those asking for such requirements do it illegally and we expect district authorities to rein in on them since just like other social services education is decentralised,” he says.

Mukasa adds that the schools that do it under the pretext of enhancing learning must do it through the right channels by, for instance, having the School Management Committees and the Parents Teacher’s Associations (PTAs) consent to the idea and have the district council approve it.

“Students should only carry personal requirements for use at school and not funny ones such as cement, slashers hoes and the like to shoulder what is meant to be the schools’ costs,” he says.

Embed in school fees
Chotildah Nakate, the headmistress Trinity College Nabbingo, says her school no longer asks students to carry extra requirements except their bank slip and holiday work.

“Our PTA and School Management Committee sat and agreed to stop asking students to bring specific requirements but convert that money into fees. We drafted the documentation and took it to the Education ministry, which agreed. in return and we hiked our school fees a bit to cater for those requirements,” she says, adding that before, they would ask students to bring indoor and outdoor brooms and mops for housework and compound management but all this ended three years ago.

Dr Charles Kahingiriza, the headmaster Ndejje SS Bombo, says: “we do not ask for physical items from parents because we feel it is cumbersome for them. We, therefore, decided to embed everything in the school fees.”