Parents accused of abandoning pupils in school

Children with disabilities go without meals when it rains because the school kitchen is in a poor state. Parents and stakeholders urged to intervene.

Parents of children with disabilities have abandoned them at Kyomya Primary School, authorities have said.
The UPE school, located in Budondo Sub-county in Jinja District, caters for children with vocal, visual and hearing impairments and other physical disabilities.

The parents do not send food, scholastic materials and also do not visit the children in school, according to the head teacher, Mr Willy Mupere.
Some of the children, who do not have clothes or shoes, depend on people of good will to survive.

Intervention call
Mr Mupere made the revelations while addressing Jinja Woman MP Agnes Nabirye, and the media relations officer of Cricket Without Boundaries, England, Mr Dave Jepson, who were at the school to donate scholastic materials to the children.

He said the school has other logistical problems which makes it difficult to cater for the disabled children.

“The situation is very bad. The section for the disabled children has 55 pupils with different disabilities, but there are only two special needs’ teachers. They cannot fully attend to that number,” he said.

Ms Nabirye said she was informed that the area has many children with disabilities, but that their parents often lock them up or hide them in kitchens and goat pens, a situation she said is dehumanising.