Island pupils struggle to keep head above water

The sounding of the bell at Namakeba Primary School in Kasaali Village, Nairambi Sub-county in Buvuma District. In other schools, it’s supposed to be a cue for learners to enter their classrooms.

Here, as the pupils congregate after emerging from all directions, they have anywhere between two and three pieces of firewood in their possession. The wood that will be burnt as fuel to prepare their meals is placed by what appears to be the school kitchen.

This is but one of the chores expected of the pupils before lessons commence. They also time and again make treks to the lake to fetch water used to prepare their porridge.

“We accompany them because there is a risk of drowning as it has happened before,” Mr Godfrey Onyango, the deputy headteacher at the school, tells Sunday Monitor, adding: “When we are with them, we stop them from swimming because some of them are very stubborn when alone.”

Crocodiles are also a clear and present danger in the lake.

In their respective classes, the pupils, who total 600, have 11 teachers at their disposal.

Mr Onyango confesses that the teacher-to-pupil ratio “is quite big.” The school itself has two sections. The upper section accommodates the lower classes from Primary One to  Primary Three. They have the privilege of using the newly constructed school structure.

The lower section—across the road and closer to the lake—accommodates learners from Primary Four to Seven. This upper primary section has classes with rusty tin roofs. Because the school has no centre number, its nine candidates that wrote their Primary Leaving Examinations papers did so several miles away at Bukoma Primary School.

Mr Hussein Bugembe, the District Education Officer, says things are looking up especially since new structures have shot up at Namakeba Primary School. The district, he adds, is “going to apply for a Uneb centre number for them so that our children stop moving long distances to do the national exams.”

The treks can be quite punishing. We found Ramathan Kadada trekking to Buvuma College to write his Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations. He told us the trek straddles at least two hours.

“I get so tired because I have to walk to and from school unless I find someone on a bicycle to offer me a lift,” he said, adding: “When it rains, I cannot go to school.”

Mr Adrian Ddungu, the Buvuma District chairperson, says they have engaged the Education ministry to code more schools to address the above problem. He adds that an invitation has been extended to Education ministry officials to see firsthand the challenges the Buvuma community continually braves.

The district has only 38 government primary schools. There is a lot of absenteeism in the school. The problem particularly afflicts the girl child who find the draw of prostitution—a common practice at landing sites—too hard to resist.

“The parents are like nomadic pastoralists,” Mr Onyango says of the other stumbling block, adding: “When they hear that Omena (silver fish) is dying on another island, they migrate. So we keep on receiving children on and off, which affects their learning.”

Contradiction 

While Sustainable Development Goal 4 sets out to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, it’s evident that children in island districts like Buvuma will continue to struggle to enjoy the right to education. It doesn’t seem to matter that the right is guaranteed in Article 30 of Uganda’s Constitution.