Rainstorm leaves Kayunga pupils stranded under trees

Kayunga. Hundreds of pupils of Kiribedda Church of Uganda Primary School in Nazigo Sub-county, Kayunga District, have no permanent classroom structures and study under trees.
The school, with an enrolment of 708 pupils, has only two classrooms.
When the rains come, some of the pupils stay at home or those already at school seek shelter in the neighbouring homes.

Others squeeze themselves into one of the classes, depending on the intensity of the rain or take shelter on the veranda.
Mr Kirabira Bulya, the school head teacher, said the roof of a three-classroom block was blown off by rainstorm last term, leaving some classes with no permanent shelter.

“Whenever it rains, some pupils opt to remain home. This has greatly affected the teaching and learning process in this school as the environment is not conducive,” he said on Wednesday.
He said on some days, they alternate classes so that each class has an opportunity to study in the permanent classrooms.
Mr Bulya said efforts to convince parents to pay some money so that the classrooms can be re-roofed have failed because many claim that they don’t have to pay any extra fees since the school is under government’s Universal Primary Education scheme .
“We have also written to the district authorities asking them to assist us put back the roof, but we have received no response yet,” Mr Bulya said.

Besides lack of classrooms, the school also lacks enough lavatory facilities, with both girls and boys sharing a three-stance pit-latrine.
“The pit-latrine for teachers is also dilapidated, which sometimes forces them to use the one for pupils. This has greatly compromised our privacy,” Mr Bulya said.
Kayunga District inspector of schools, Mr Ramadhan Simali, said they had instructed the head teacher to write to the chief administrative officer about the problem so that the district writes to the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness for assistance.

“As a district, we don’t have funds to build structures for that school because the problem arose when the budgeting process was already done, but we hope to build some classrooms in the next financial year,” Mr Simali said.
He added that a number of other primary schools in the district lack enough classrooms, noting that some schools have only four or five classrooms.

“The challenge of lack of enough classrooms is still big, but we hope government will gradually give us funds to build classrooms for schools in dire need,” Mr Simali said.
The Kayunga District chairperson, Mr Tom Sserwanga, advised parents of schools that lack classrooms to work with head teachers and contribute some funds for development.
“A disaster can strike any time and we may not have money as a district to assist the victims, but if it is a school, parents can contribute some money as they wait for government assistance,” he said.

Background
The months between March and May usually constitute the first major rainy season in Uganda. However, the rain delayed in most parts of the country up to late April. When it started to fall, weather experts predicted that the rain would be destructive in some parts of the country, especially in the central region and urged the public to be alert. Disasters ranging from strong rainstorm, mudslides, lightning and floods have already battered several parts of the country, killing people and destroying crops and other property worth billions of shillings.

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