Museveni pushes for girls rights, education

Residents of Soroti gather for Yoweri Museveni's final rally in Soroti Municipality on Sunday. Photo by PPU

Serere.

President Museveni has promised to address the challenges facing girl-child education, noting that women need support at an early age because they are the pillars of a family.

Mr Museveni used his wife, Janet, to illustrate the worth of keeping girls in school, saying she was able to watch over the family as he engaged in several wars for 13 years because she had gone to school.

At his rally in Sapir Primary School, Serere County, Serere District yesterday, Mr Museveni said the idea of distributing free sanitary pads to school girls was impressed upon him by “experts” as they tried to get to the bottom of school drop-out among girls.

“An educated woman is the centre of gravity. Men deceive themselves that they are the kings but women are the real kings. I spent a total of 13 years in the bush fighting and you may wonder that how did Museveni have a family? But because my wife was educated, she was able to handle,” Mr Museveni said.

There are 181 primary schools, nine secondary schools -but nine parishes without primary schools in the district according to figures Mr Museveni gave before explaining that the government policy is to have a primary school for every parish.

If returned to office, President Museveni also promised that his government will provide primary school children with free scholastic materials but maintained that parents will still be required to offer packed lunch.

“We are going to begin buying exercise books, pens and pencils for the children. This has been the work of parents. Your job now as parents is to provide packed food for the children,” Mr Museveni said.

At his first two rallies at Kadungulu Primary School, Kasilo County, the President focused on immature fishing in the area, promising to scrap the Beach Management Unit organisations that unite communities engaged in fishing, accusing them of mediocrity.

Fishing is at the centre of livelihoods for many communities in Kasilo, on the shores of Lake Kyoga but illegal fishing methods have saw fish stocks plummet over the years.

On the issue of restocking/compensating people who lost cattle to rustlers, the President pleaded for patience.
During the rallies in the district, people were paraded, claiming they were defecting from FDC to the ruling NRM before they could be given T-shirts.