Provide school facilities to check girl dropout

Yesterday, Daily Monitor carried a heart-breaking story with the headline, ‘Girls abandon school over sharing pit-latrine with boys. Lulongo Primary School in Mubende District has only one pit-latrine. The lone pit-latrine in a school with 400 students, is also used by the school staff, including teachers.

Ms Ruth Sanyu, the senior woman teacher, said 15 girls had abandoned the school because they could not withstand sharing the latrine with the boys. She added that more than 40 girls miss classes every week during the term. Most of the girls who abandoned the school had started their menstrual periods and needed privacy when visiting the latrine, but couldn’t find one.

It is likely that the girls, who miss classes on certain weeks, do so when they are having their periods. When a girl is having her period, it is important that she is afforded privacy whenever she needs to use the toilet. Unfortunately, although the single pit-latrine in Lulongo Primary School has doors, they do not have locks. This leaves the girls getting embarrassed when someone else, especially a male, finds them. According to Ms Sanyu, “Sometimes boys laugh at them when they see menstrual blood leaking and staining their uniforms.”

It is a pity that someone would decide to leave school because she cannot be afforded privacy when having to go to the toilet. The Masindi District secretary for education, Mr Daniel Kazibwe, says they cannot afford to put another pit-latrine in the school because the funds meant for such projects were transferred to the sub-county.

So schools like Lulongo are not able to do the things important for the pupils because the money might not come through or might be allocated strictly to something else. Therefore, it is important that a solution be found to ensure that schools are able to take care of urgent needs.

Schools in the district face different challenges. As such, the sub-county needs to ensure that it is parcelling out funds for what each school needs. There should be adequate communication between the two and an agreement over what the money should be used for. There should also be regular and proper inspection of schools so that the officials are aware of what is happening.

What comes through strongly also is that many girls are dropping out of school or missing classes because they do not have all they need to go through the days when they have their period without worrying. They do not have sanitary pads and that they are in an environment where their fellow pupils are not taught to understand and empathise with them. The fight to keep girls in school still has a long way to go, but the battle must continue.