220 primary teachers transferred in Tororo

The directorate of education in Tororo District has transferred 220 primary school teachers in a bid to improve the academic performance in public primary schools.

The acting district education officer, Mr Albert Odoi, confirmed that most of the transfers were out of requests from teachers and head teachers who alleged that parents were hostile to them after the poor performance.
He said 57 head teachers and 163 teachers were transferred.
Mr Odoi, however, said some had overstayed.
“We were supposed to have effected transfers last year after parents reached an extent of locking offices of head teachers and chasing them away and accusing them of being none performers. But we had to ignore because it was going to interrupt learning and teaching in the schools,’’ Mr Odoi told the Daily Monitor during an interview.
He said the transfers were done after a thorough on-spot survey conducted by the directorate basing on the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education and Sports, directing local governments to ensure that there is rational distribution of teachers, which he says, had not been the case in most of the schools in the district.
Mr Odoi said although the guidelines directed that each school should at least have a minimum of eight teachers, some of the schools had as low as five teachers, adding that this had created a big gap in the education system.
He said the vacuum could have been caused by factors such as retiring, death and others who opted for greener pastures.
“The directorate has also put up measures including paying close supervision to poor performing schools such as Utro Primary School which recorded majority failures and many others that performed poorly in the 2018 Primary Leaving Examinations,’’ he said.
He applauded school administrators for the hard work and commitment that saw the district realising slight improvement in last year’s PLE performance.
He tasked them to do better next year.
He said he was happy to note that out of 8,626 candidates that sat for PLE, 7,000 scored grades that allow them to join secondary education and tertiary institutions while the remaining 1,626 failed.
He attributed the failures to absenteeism, child marriages, child labor and limited parental commitment towards supporting their children’s education.