Govt should support schools

What you need to know:

  • The order also contradicts Article 21 of the Constitution that calls for equality under the law. This is due to the fact that many government schools immune from the order are in a much worse situation with studies being conducted under trees.
  • The timing of the closure is also poor. For example, schools in the central district of Kampala are to be shut on February 5, the day many schools are set to open for the first term. The students ill hardly have time to fit into new schools and the employees will also lose jobs hence shooting up the unemployment rate.

Uganda has a population of about 40 million people, approximately 48 per cent of this population is under the age of 14. Despite the fact that a proportion of the 48 per cent are toddlers not yet ripe for an education, it is an indicator that even minus the scholars that are above the age of 14 years, the majority of Ugandans are of school going age. But the sad reality is many never get a chance to step into a classroom and numerous lucky ones are always a blink away from a drop-out.

A recent regrettable example of this are the 65 per cent of the 1.8 million children, who enrolled in Primary One in 2011 but could not sit PLE in 2017. This is a 35 per cent completion rate, yet our neighbours, Kenya enjoy up to 84 per cent completion rate. The daunting question is how a big margin of 49 per cent comes about yet many Kenyan leaners previously trekked to Uganda in pursuit of a better education.

It is a trite principle that the quality of a school affects the quality of education. Government identified issues such as lack of scholastic materials, poor washrooms, and limited classrooms. Following the right procedure, government came to a mischievous conclusion to shut down more than 1,300 schools.

The net victims of the shutdown are the pupils. Children will be forced to change schools to those, which are mostly likely to be much distant, less convenient and more costly yet the affected schools may not even be profit oriented. Such non profit schools ask for little or no fees. An example of this is Busoga Junior School in Jinja that gives fees waivers to all children with disabilities.

The order also contradicts Article 21 of the Constitution that calls for equality under the law. This is due to the fact that many government schools immune from the order are in a much worse situation with studies being conducted under trees.

The timing of the closure is also poor. For example, schools in the central district of Kampala are to be shut on February 5, the day many schools are set to open for the first term. The students ill hardly have time to fit into new schools and the employees will also lose jobs hence shooting up the unemployment rate.

It is a humble prayer that government reconsiders its approach and employ solutions that are not gravely injurious to the beacons of the country. Such friendly mechanisms include the public-private partnership.

The running budget indicated that Shs15.23 billion was needed to rehabilitate the depleted schools. This should be boosted to include even the private trudging schools.

The educational facets should be very negligibly or not taxed at all. But the absurd bit is that Uganda Revenue Authority is planning to bumper taxes on scholastic materials. One book, one pen, one teacher, one child, can change the world.

Timothy Kajja Kashami,
[email protected].