Kampala City Lord Mayor, Salongo Erias Lukwago has today said that the government of Uganda should close all Universal Primary Education (UPE) Schools within Kampala because of their dismal performance.
Lukwago said this shortly after the release of the results from the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE).
Erias Lukwago made these remarks after looking at the results that came in from all the Government schools within his territory, Kampala City. The results showed that out of all the 70 Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools in Kampala, the best pupil got an aggregate of 5.
This is a good performance for an individual, but when you look at the general performance, it is worrying. This weak performance
prompted Mr. Lukwago to angrily urge the government to close all the UPE schools within Kampala since it cannot support them adequately.
Lukwago also said that even the schools such as Nakasero Primary School, Buganda Road Primary School, Kitante, Bat valley, and others, which used to be the best before the government incorporated them into UPE, have since deteriorated in terms of performance, which is absurd.
What we think about Lord Mayor’s statement.
When you look at Lukwago’s statement, as a parent and stakeholder in Kampala, he has a point, however, it also has ripple effects. Let’s look at the problems that people in Kampala are set to face once these schools are closed;
If the government closed UPE schools, then children from extremely poor backgrounds will not have where to study from. This means that there will be massive illiteracy around Kampala and the country at large. This is because these UPE schools serve children from poor backgrounds, those whose parents cannot afford to pay the high fees in private schools.
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There will be massive unemployment in the country once UPE schools are closed. Unemployment comes from the many people who will have lost their jobs as a result of closing these schools. These people include teachers, bursars, cooks, cleaners and so many others. Therefore these schools should stay operational to curb unemployment.
However, instead of Lukwago’s urge for the government to close UPE schools in Kampala due to their poor performance, I suggest that through his authority as the head of Kampala City, he should work more closely with the central government, through the Ministry of Education and Sports to see that the gaps which cause poor performance in these schools are closed. The following are some of the issues that cause poor performance in schools not only within Kampala but even elsewhere throughout the country;
There is low government funding for UPE schools. The government spends little money on every child in a UPE school, with a figure of about 10,000 shillings per child, every term. This money is so minimal to be able to pay teachers adequately, and once teachers are underpaid, expect low output from them which definitely trickles down to the poor performance of pupils.
pupils in Government schools.
The issue of very few staff in UPE schools is another factor in their miserable performance. Once a school has very few teachers, then students will not be able to benefit fully from them. One of the councilors said that in her area of residence, there is a government school called “Kyaggwe Road primary school” which has about 2000 pupils but with only 7 teachers, two of whom teach Primary Seven. This kind of arrangement can’t enable teachers to teach well because they usually have a very huge load to cover, which they can’t do effectively.
The issue of absenteeism among staff at government schools is also a cause of the children’s dismal performance. Usually, in government schools, some teachers are not so serious with their work because most of them have other Private schools where they teach and so they use these government schools as a fall-back position because the government pays them throughout the year. If teachers get more serious with their work in schools, children’s performance will also be better.
Government should strengthen the supervision of its schools since it funds them. Government supervision of schools should be strengthened so that there is no stone left unturned. This helps to find out which teachers are skipping work, the scholastic materials needed, recruitment of new and experienced staff etcetera. School supervisors should find out all these issues and forward them to their seniors so that they are worked upon.
In conclusion, as opposed to closing down UPE for poor performance in Kampala as Lord Mayor proposes, the above issues should be worked on so that performance is improved.
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