Mukono bishop slams govt over UPE, USE

The Bishop for Mukono Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Enos Kitto Kagodo has rebuked the government for misleading parents who take their children to schools under the free universal education scheme not to pay any money yet it has not yet built capacity to cater for everything.

Government introduced the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme in 1997  and a decade later added Universal Secondary Education, USE,  to  enable primary school graduates to enroll in tuition-free secondary schools  and vocational training institutions.

However, despite the increased learner enrolment and the substantial investment in the education sector, there have been concerns about the high school drop-out rate, the high pupil-to-book ratio, lack of basic instructional materials, among others.

During his  Easter message at the diocesan headquarters in Mukono on March 28, Bishop Kagodo said  stopping parents to pay some money to facilitate their children’s education is unfair when  it is crystal clear that the government lacks enough funds to run the free education programme.

“I have visited many schools and have observed the former good schools collapse because parents were told their children are to study for free. This cannot happen in Uganda now  because we all know schools need money to operate and the government support cannot meet all the needs of the learners,” Bishop Kagodo explained adding that;

“I urge parents to pay the agreed amounts of money to enable school management committees to hire more staff to boost academic standards and also be able to feed pupils because hunger has equally affected the performance of learners.”

For over two decades, there has been a lack of a clear feeding programme in UPE schools which has negatively impacted on the scheme, causing massive drop-outs and absenteeism as many pupils cannot stand the biting hunger at school.

On many occasions , efforts by  head teachers to have parents  pay extra money to cater for their children’s lunch have been reversed by President Museveni who viewed it as an extra burden to his voters.

The president has repeatedly threatened to arrest head teachers who pester parents to pay lunch fees.

Bishop Kagodo further asked Christians to participate in the diocesan general cleaning campaign (Bulungi bwansi) to be launched next month for people to clean their surroundings and also plant trees as a measure to mitigate climate change effects.

“Next month, we’re launching a campaign throughout the entire diocese to start general cleaning intended to improve hygiene and improper garbage management practices. We also urge Christians during this Easter break to plant at least a tree (fruit tree) to mitigate the impacts of climate change in our communities,” Bishop Kagodo said

The diocese also highlighted the different activities organized throughout this entire Holy week .Tomorrow, March 29, Christians will take part  in the Way of the Cross to reflect on the days of Jesus Christ which lead to his Crucifixion for mankind.

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