Masaka Diocese bans visitations in schools on Sundays

Education authorities in Masaka Catholic Diocese have banned school visitations on Sunday as a way of honouring the day.

According to Fr Michael Kamulegeya, the Masaka Diocesan education secretary, a large number of Christian parents spend much of their Sunday time preparing to visit their children in boarding sections and end up missing Sunday Mass, which affects their faith. 

“Parents with children in boarding schools spend Sundays moving to schools to visit them. When the new school term opens, many parents prefer to use Sunday to take their children back to school. This has to change. Under our new policy all diocesan schools should open for new term on Mondays, not Sundays as provided for by the Ministry of Education, and those that feel like they cannot manage to use Mondays, should resort to Saturdays and this should be the case with school visitation days as well,” he said during an interview on Saturday.

He also announced that the diocese will continue to teach Christian Religious Education (CRE) in all its schools as advised by the Episcopal Conference, although the subject is no longer examined under the new Lower Secondary Education Curriculum.

“The new Lower Secondary Curriculum removed CRE from subjects examined, but the Episcopal Conference resolved that CRE should continue to be taught in our schools and we shall follow that,” He added.

The Masaka Diocesan Inspector of Schools, Fr Francis Xavier Lubega called upon proprietors of private schools to always listen to learners’ concerns to avoid unnecessary strikes.

“Though the ideas and concerns of students may sound childish, they should always be heard and handled because those are the issues that affect them and may force them to become unruly.

Implementation

“Let school proprietors always use available measures such as suggestion boxes, prefects’ bodies, or class teachers’ meetings to get their concerns and address them in time to avoid what would result from not addressing their challenges which may pile and force them into strikes,” he added.

Mr Jude Kayiwa, the head teacher of Uganda Martyr Primary School, Katwe, said they have already enforced the directive.

He said although Monday seems to be challenging for working parents, they have chosen Saturday, which they are studying to see if it can work.

“Since it was the first time to receive pupils on a Saturday it inconvenienced us as a school, we had to receive pupils for three days instead of the usual two days, but we are allowing them to use Sunday afternoon for those that can’t manage Saturday since by that time we expect them to have already attended the Sunday Mass.’’ he added.

Ms Josephine Nanfuka, a teacher at Archbishop Kiwanuka Secondary School, Kitovu, welcomed the decision by the diocesan education authorities, saying it will also give them a chance to attend Sunday Mass.

“As a school, they had already decided to shift visitation days to Saturday after realising that their teachers would get so tired during Sundays and at times end up missing classes on Monday.

At times, teachers could miss lessons on Monday because they spend a long day on Sunday receiving parents during School Visitation Day, which made us decide to shift. We hope the new arrangement will be convenient for our parents,” she added. 

Background 

Masaka Diocese which covers the nine districts of Greater Masaka runs 449 primary schools, 66 secondary schools, 19 kindergartens, 19 vocational institutions, one university of ecclesiastical studies, and 1 secular university. All of these schools are based on Catholic principles of faith.