District to punish parents for keeping school children home

Some Pupils of St Boneventure Matanga Primary School in Masaka share food during lunch time recently.
PHOTO BY MARTINS E. SSEKWEYAMA

MASAKA- The district is introducing a by-law intended to make education compulsory to all school- going age children in the area. The proposed by-law also intends to punish all parents who fail to enroll and maintain their children in school.

Mr Jude Mbabaali, the Masaka District chairperson, who masterminded the proposal that is yet to be tabled before the district council for approval, said the district is grappling with high numbers of school dropouts.

The chairperson said massive school dropouts are common at the landing sites and in rural sub-counties. “This proposed by-law is intended to effect government’s Universal Primary Education programme (UPE) as well as checking parents who deliberately fail to enroll their children in school,” he said during an interview with Daily Monitor at the weekend.
He said due to laxity of some parents many children have dropped out of school to do casual jobs like fishing and vending foodstuffs in towns.

Dropout rates
Mr Mbabaali said their move was prompted by reports that showed more than 30 per cent of pupils who enroll for Primary education neither complete Primary Seven nor join vocational schools.

He noted that they want to ensure that communities utilise the available education services.

The proposed by-law will also reactivate the district’s education policy passed in 2013, which was intended to compel all parents to provide lunch to their children at school as a way of improving the quality of education in the area. “We are going to bundle up all these clauses to ensure that we also improve quality of education,” he added.

Ms Betty Namagembe, the Masaka District education officer, said introducing such a by-law was long overdue, adding that once adopted, it will awaken parents. who have abandoned their responsibility.

Background
Government introduced free primary education in 1997 to reduce the cost of basic primary education.
Although the country boasts of more than eight million pupils in primary school compared to 2.3 million before the introduction of UPE, the scheme has been laden by unchecked graft which has crippled the delivery of quality education in the country.