Expensive school trips: Education or exploitation?

Some school trips offer good exposure to students but others a simply are waste of parents’ hard-earned money. File Photo

Every parent or guardian with school going children has at one time or another received a school circular detailing the destination and cost of a trip organised by the school for students of a given class. And although they are not consulted before these trips are announced, parents are expected to pay for all costs involved which usually range from transport, feeding and sometimes accommodation fees depending on the destination.
These days, schools organise trips to places that were never on the destination lists in the past for instance trips to shopping malls and trips abroad.
One wonders if these trips are even necessary because they usually revert pressure onto the parent who has to foot the bill.

Benefits
Aggrey Kimeera, an educator and head teacher at Kings Way Primary School on Entebbe Road notes that the essence of school tours is to give pupils an opportunity to physically see what they learn in class.

“It breaks the book/classroom monotony giving them a chance to adventure and get exposed to wider knowledge than what the curriculum specifies,” Kimeera shares.
He however recommends that Uganda should be the first to be visited, “We have very many places that directly fall within our national curriculum for instance our local industries, lakes, rivers, farms, plantations, historical sites and cultural sites among many other places which our pupils have many lessons to learn from that can impact their lives in future.”

Consultations
Yes, most of these trips are optional but like many other parents, Rania Nakalema wonders why they are always announced to the learners and not the parents first. Nakalema believes that school administrators should hold prior presentations for parents about the trips and their opinion sought.

Simply announcing an upcoming trip to learners causes excitement among the latter which in turn translates into undue pressure on parents to pay for the trips.

Nakalema remembers a time when her son had a school trip that required about US$1000. So what happens when a parent cannot afford such a trip?

“The children do not want to miss the trip and the teachers make it look like it is a must attend so the parent is forced to pay,” Tracy Nambatya, a parent shares.

A parent who prefers anonymity highlights that the trips are usually scheduled before major events such as national examinations and a note is indicated that after the trip, prayers will be held for students.

“Which parent in their right mind would let their child miss important prayers knowing the impact they have on the child’s psychological and emotional wellbeing?”

Exposure
Ronald Isabirye, the chief executive officer, Exposure Tourism, one of the educational tour agencies in Uganda shares that growing up, school trips were to places such as Jinja, Namanve (Coca Cola plant) and Hot Loaf Bakery. Times have changed and so have school trip destinations.
Isabirye says that trips are now organised for students to travel abroad to places like Dubai, Jerusalem and that these are aimed at improving the child’s exposure.

“Some trips are educational such as those to Mombasa, South Africa because the children get to see what they are taught in class,” Isabirye shares. Having worked with more than 50 schools, Isabirye shares that there is no better way of exposing learners to how the rest of the world looks like and works.

Expenses
Some parents say schools should to organise activities or trips that encourage and promote harmony, uniformity and avoid bringing up inequalities that are blatant when exorbitant amounts are charged creating a divide between the haves and the have nots. Isabirye says this is never their intention.

“Our aim is to enable children to gain exposure, however, I do admit that there are also individuals who look at what we do as a business and exploit parents to maximize profits,”Isabirye stresses.

The reason some of these trips are pricy could be because of the safety measures that have to be considered.

“We work with different airlines and hospitals that ensure that the students are well taken care of during the study tours with travel insurance,” Isabirye notes.

What the ministry says
Patrick Muinda, the assistant commissioner at the Ministry of Education and Sports notes that this trend of school tours and trips has been observed and noted by the ministry.

“A circular with clear guidelines of reference by schools, parents and students will be issued to address these concerns that affect us all especially the parents of these children,”Muinda says.