Given better chance, rural pupils can perform better

Despite efforts dedicated to improve primary schools’ performance, we have continued to witness many loopholes. It becomes worse when we analyse the hardships most of the rural pupils go through to attain education.

Recently, in the 2019 report of National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), revealed that many primary and secondary schools teachers were not using the new syllabuses developed by NCDC and this puts children at a great risk. This causes poor performance because of wrong academic information

The 2019 report of Elimination of Child Labour in Tobacco foundation (ELCT), child labour rate was at 30 per cent, and this is a hindrance to child’s intellectual capacity and physical development contributing to school drop outs, which figure currently stands at 35 per cent, according to Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) 2016/17.

Promise Komugisha, a 13-year-old former pupil of Katomi Primary School in Ntungamo District, is one of the many unlucky rural students, who did not manage to perform well in the 2018 Primary Leaving Examination (PLE). Throughout her studies, Promise faced numerous challenges ranging from inadequate household financial support to pay school fees, boarding section charges and meals, inadequate source of energy such as electricity and paraffin to scholastic materials like textbooks and exercise books.

Financial conditions subjected Promise to hard labour in order to get finances for some of her school and personal needs. Her school was also not convenient as she studied from crowded classrooms with few teachers. Walking 6kms to and from school daily, made it even harder for her.

However, amid all the hardships, Promise scored Aggregates 17 in PLE of 2018, which is a second grade. Her challenges are not over yet although she qualified to go to secondary school, she has not joined school this year. Her grandparents were not in position to raise all that is required of her to join Senior One. However, such performance can improve, if the following policy recommendations are implemented:

The government should allocate much of education spending and subsidies to rural schools. Also, the private sector needs to be supported to enable them reduce the school fees they charge. This is to cater for primary education needs and help in reducing the cost burden, especially in poor and disadvantaged households. This will help to eliminate inequalities to basic education outcomes.

We also need to recruit competent teachers with skills to use the new national curriculum, which is a key to success of all students. However, this goes along with strict monitoring and supervision by responsible officers both at national and local level without forgetting politicians who reside in the same locality.

It is worth noting that Uganda under Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, put in place child labour policy in 2006, but it needs to be strengthened and implemented. The government should work closely with local authorities to ensure implementation of programmes that effectively and sustainably fight child labour. The community should equally be sensitised about the above policy and the value of education.

The solution to end long-walk-to -school is for government to prioritise on construction of new schools in parishes. Also, hostels should be built in schools where many students, who walk for long distances can reach school in time. The role of parents should not be underrated in rural-pupils’ performance. There is need for continuous sensitisation about their roles and responsibilities besides that of government.

School governance structures like PTA and school management committees should also be empowered and equipped to do their work for schools to deliver quality output. This will drive parents to follow up the education progress of their children hence better performance.

All in all, this requires a joint effort from all stakeholders. If all such steps are taken, we will be contributing towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 4 of quality education.

Ms Tusiime is a research assistant from Great Lakes Institute for Strategic studies. [email protected].