We all have gone through a very tough time since the death of 20 pupils in the Budo Junior inferno. Many people have written articles in Daily Monitor raising pertinent issues on the subject.

However, there is a very disturbing factor that remains unanswered.

For instance, why is the Minister of Education still holding that portfolio? This minister was appointed to serve the people as the head of the ministry responsible for educating Ugandans.

We parents employ the minister to formulate education policies suitable for the education of our children. The policies are supposed to embrace several sectors including guaranteeing the safety of children in schools.

Although schools have principals, teachers, matrons and security guards, it's the minister in charge of education who is the final authority responsible for coordinating their work to ensure that they implement the set policies.

When fire gutted the Budo dormitory, emotions, characterised by accusations and counter accusations, went high. And in spite these accusations, the police are yet to establish the cause of the fire. But investigations into the Budo tragedy will not yield anything because Budo is not the first school to be gutted by fire yet no report came out on the past fires.

Moreover in the case of the Budo inferno, the investigations must include everybody concerned right from the minister down to the dormitory guard.

For the inquiries to yield results, they must be conducted when the people who are suspected of having failed the system are not holding their offices.

The Minister of Education as well as the Budo headmaster should have resigned in the aftermath of the dormitory fire. How can we have an independent investigation when the people being investigated are holding the necessary files?

But most importantly, if even after the death of 20 young innocent girls the minister can't resign, then how many more pupils must die before the minister takes political responsibilty? What is the price of a child in a Uganda?

In any case, a resignation of a minister does not mean acceptance of guilt but meant to show the public that something went wrong and the in charge is deeply affected by it. It also gives investigators room to establish the facts about has gone wrong without any interference.

When investigations are concluded and the minister is found to be innocent, yes, she can be re-appointed to the positions.

But when the Minister of Education refuses to resign especially in relation to to the tragedy, she sends out a very chilling message that they do not care about the dead children and that they deliberately formulated poor policies because they have nothing to lose.

It also shows that they have no respect for the parents who lost their children in the inferno. I do not believe that any of those conclusions are true with regard to the Minister of Education Namirembe Bitamazire.

But should she fail to resign from her portfolio when children in Uganda are dying in such big numbers, she will leave us with no option but to believe that actually she is touched by these deaths.

My appeal is that schools in Uganda should be clean up and be allowed to regain their former glory and safety environment like they were in the past.

The writer is a Ugandan living in Toronto, Canada