School struggles with shortage of classrooms
What you need to know:
- The headmaster, Mr Azizi Walumoli, told the Monitor that the school with a population of 5,000 has a deficit of 25 classrooms
Bugwere High School, one of the oldest traditional schools in the eastern district of Budaka, is facing a shortage of classrooms amid high enrolment of students.
The headmaster, Mr Azizi Walumoli, told the Monitor that the school with a population of 5,000 has a deficit of 25 classrooms.
“The school faces a big challenge of classroom inadequacy to cater for this population explosion. The school requires 40 classrooms but currently has only 15 classrooms, giving a deficit of 25 classrooms,” Mr Walumoli said.
Due to the continued lack of infrastructure, the administration of the school has since turned a grounded school bus and tree shades into classrooms for students.
Mr Walumoli said the Ministry of Education had earlier pledged to construct more classrooms, an administrative block, a multi-purpose hall, a science laboratory, a library, teachers’ quarters, and pit-latrines but this hasn’t been implemented.
“The classrooms have rugged floors, very dusty, leaking roofs, and poor furniture. The situation makes learning very difficult,” he said.
Mr Walumoli said the school also requires eight dormitories.
“Recruitment of more teachers could not be done because the district had said the wage bill cannot allow. This is the dilemma we are in now but school is supposed to have 120 teachers but currently we have 90,” he said.
The school, which sits on 15 acres of land, has few staff quarters, which are also dilapidated with some of the roofs leaking, walls have developed cracks, and are poorly ventilated.
The teacher-student ratio stands at 1:200, which is too big for effective learning and the classroom-student ratio also stands at the same.
Mr Walumoli added that under the Universal Secondary Education (USE) programme, the school receives Shs142m but it is supposed to get Shs200m per term.
He said the school faces another challenge of water shortage.
“The school spends about Shs700,000 per week and Shs1.5m per month on buying water, which is too costly for the school,” Mr Walumoli said.
Academic performance
Mr Walumoli said in terms of academic performance, the school has improved, saying in 2018, they registered six students in Division One, while in 2022, 18 students got Division One and 180 scored Division Two.
“In 2023, the school registered 20 learners in Division One, 93 in Division Two, and 86 in Division Three,” Mr Walumoli said.
The district education officer, Mr Paul Higenyi, said: “So many outstanding people have gone through this school and we call upon the government to rescue the school in infrastructure development.”
Mr Arthur Wako Mboizi, the Budaka County MP, said there is a need to support the traditional schools to improve academic performance.
“We are glad that the government has plans to support this school because it is one of the old traditional schools in this region,” Mr Mboizi said.