Incompetent teachers face demotion, dismissal

Kole. An ambitious plan to improve the education standards in Kole District by subjecting all head teachers to a one-year performance contract agreement has triggered controversy over the usefulness of the initiative.
Head teachers are mandated by the district education authorities to sign a contract renewable after meeting the set targets.
Since last year, the education department has been implementing the performance contract agreement with an assumption that it will improve the standards of education in the district. The second contract will be signed in December.
Any head teacher who fails to meet the set targets gets a warning before tougher penalties are employed according to the agreement.
If a head teacher fails to muddle through again, they then face disciplinary action before being forwarded to the Reward and Sanction Committee for another harsh punishment, including demotion.
But critics warn that subjecting head teachers to signing contracts would be equated to committing suicide.
According to Community Score Card (CSC) administered by the Apac Anti-Corruption Coalition (TAACC) recently, Ayor Primary School in Bala Sub-county has never got any pupil passing in first grade for the last six years.
The head teacher of Ayor, Mr Benson Moses Okaka, was among the 61 school heads who signed the performance contract agreement in 2016.
However, his school did not produce any first grade that same year.
Critics are now uncertain whether the agreement reached between the head teachers and the district will improve education standards in the area.
Many schools in the district are faced with various challenges such as inadequate classrooms, desks, latrines and teachers’ accommodation that hinder better performance.
According to TAACC, Ayor Primary School has 156 desks for 1,030 pupils enrolled from Primary One to Primary Seven. This means seven pupils struggle for one desk, twice the capacity.
“If the teachers are supposed to commit themselves through signing the agreement, I look at them as almost committing suicide because they were unable to do any miracle before,” says Mr Tom Superman Opwonya, the executive director of TAACC.
Mr Opwonya says Kole has a long way to go in terms of improving its education standards.
“If for the last six years you have failed to produce any child in first grade, how can you go ahead and sign that you will have one? It is totally impossible,” he says.
Mr Opwonya adds that unless parents encourage their children to attend classes and school authorities supervise teachers to ensure they prepare schemes of work and lesson plans, standards of education will not improve.
“Parents are not supporting their children in school. Some do not pay school dues nor provide them with midday lunch,” Mr Okaka says.
However, the district education officer, Mr Tom Okare, maintains that contract performance agreement is the way to go.
“We always make our teachers sign this performance agreement and they set targets. We strongly believe that it is going to improve on the performance,” he says, adding that the strategy has realised big increment in the number of pupils passing in Division one in the district.
According to last year’s Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) results, Lira District emerged the overall winner in the eight districts of Lango sub region, followed by Kole.
Out of 3,293 candidates in Kole who registered for PLE in 2016, at least 157 passed in first grade.
“So I think we are moving on a right track and we are realising impact, things are changing because of performance contract agreement,” Mr Okare says.
Mr Charles Odongo, the head teacher of Aleloibanya Primary School and former chairperson of head teachers in the district, says poor record keeping and lack of basic facilities have impacted negatively on performance.
“You can imagine if you don’t know the enrollment, what do you use when you are budgeting for these children? If the visitors are coming to your home and you don’t know their number definitely you cannot budget for them,” he says.
According to Mr Odongo girls in school are highly affected by the various challenges.
“You can imagine seven children sitting on a desk, fighting and depriving girls of seats. That automatically affects learning,” he says.
Mr Odongo proposes that parents should be mobilised and encouraged to pay money to cater for teachers accommodation.
The district secretary for education and health, Ms Pamela Akullu, says they have prioritised construction of pit latrines to improve on sanitation in schools and purchase of desks in this financial year.
“Our priority is to ensure that we address lack of classrooms in schools that are needy,” says Ms Akullu.
Mr Boniface Owidi, the district inspector of schools, says they will continue with regular inspections to ensure that school activities harmonise with the education policy.

Number of schools
There are 61 government-aided primary schools, one community primary school and five government secondary schools in Kole.
In 2016, the district registered a total of 63,000 pupils that were being taught by 1,248 teachers.

Key issues

Facilities. Many schools in the district face challenges such as inadequate classrooms, desks, latrines and teachers’ accommodation that hinder better performance.
According to TAACC, Ayor Primary School has 156 desks for 1,030 pupils enrolled from Primary One to Primary Seven.

Voices

“If the teachers are supposed to commit themselves through signing the agreement, I look at them as almost committing suicide because they were unable to do any miracle before,”
Tom Superman opwonya, director the Apac Anti-Corruption Coalition

“We always make our teachers sign this performance agreement and they set targets. We strongly believe that it is going to improve on the performance,”
Tom Okare, KOLE district education officer

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