What you need to know:

One of the conditions for acquiring the loan funding the project is that the funds should not be used for acquisition or transfer of land to set up the seed school.

The Ministry of Education and Sports is struggling to acquire land for the ongoing construction of seed secondary schools across the country, a government official has said.
The government received a loan from the World Bank through Inter-governmental Fiscal Transfer (UgIFT) programme for construction of seed secondary schools in selected sub-counties in Uganda.
Under this intervention, the line ministry plans to construct a total of 259 schools in sub-counties without seed schools.

The construction is being handled in phases, with the first phase covering 117 schools, according to Mr Alfred Kyaka, the assistant commissioner for secondary education at the Ministry of Education.
While commissioning Bata Seed Secondary School in Bata Sub-county, Dokolo District, on Tuesday, Mr Kyaka said the government will construct 115 and 27 schools in the second and third phases, respectively.
Each school is estimated to cost more than Shs2 billion.
However, implementation of the project has been hampered by land acquisition challenges.
This newspaper has established that one of the conditions for acquiring this loan is that the funds should not be used for acquisition or transfer of land to set up the seed school.

To avoid the reoccurrence of the above issues, the Ministry of Education has now asked all beneficiary local governments to provide proof of land ownership as a prerequisite to benefit under the second and third phases of UgIFT.
Where titles are not available, it is a requirement for the local governments to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the donor of the land. Among other things, the MoU commits the donor to transfer the land to the school without conditions, and commits the local government to title the land in the school’s name.
But some districts are failing to provide the land.
Mr Kyaka confirmed that some districts simply did not have the required five acres of public land within the target sub-counties, leading to delays in commencement of civil works.

Some of the affected local governments include, among others, Wakiso, Mukono, Buhweju, Luweero and Mpigi.
“But you will note that as soon as we commenced with this project, Covid-19 came in and the usual processes of land acquisition could not be followed. So, a number of sites (schools) have not yet acquired land titles,” Mr Kyaka said.
“In some of the local governments, we had initially required them to provide public land measuring not less than five acres. Many local governments could not get that kind of land and, therefore, the ministry had to seek partnership with religious denominations to make sure these seed secondary schools are constructed,” he added.

He, however, said Bata Seed Secondary School secured its land title.
Bata Sub-county leadership allocated 10-acre piece of land for the construction of their seed school from the about 20 acres that was earlier donated to them by some members of the community.
The idea of starting Bata Seed Secondary School was conceived by the community in 2018.
And 173 students currently enroled at the school moved to the site at Awigweng Village in Atabu Parish from Atabu Primary School where the pioneer students started from.

The chairperson of school board of governor, Mr Johnson Ocol, said the computers, CCTV cameras and projectors delivered to the school under UgFIT have remained unutilised because of lack of electricity.
“Out of the staff ceiling of 31, only 18 are in place, reflecting a staffing gap of 13, including a substantive head teacher.
While responding to the issues highlighted, Mr Kyaka said there was no cause for alarm.

He explained that one key area that the Ministry of Education is focusing on is recruitment of staff.
Education minister Janet Museveni said over the years, the ministry has taken bold steps towards the “right direction” like revising its policies to promote diversity, skills and provision of a comprehensive education to enhance the competitiveness of children to survive within the ever-changing global environment.
“Right from the planning stage, our priority as government is to develop our human capital and our responsibility as a ministry is to provide quality education,” she said in a speech read for her by the State minister for Northern Uganda, Ms Grace Freedom Kwiyucwiny.

READ MORE