Paul Watala
15 November 2009
Kampala — LEADERS from Kapchorwa district have appealed to the parliamentary social services committee to liaise with the Government to quickly settle the land dispute between the Benet and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).
The leaders want to pave the way for development of education in the district.
Nelson Chelimo, the district chairman, on Wednesday said due to the on going conflict, the district had failed to construct permanent structures, which had affected academic performance.
"Since 1983, when the Benet were displaced by UWA, the area has faced a lot of challenges in education. We cannot construct permanent structures like classrooms, roads and pit latrines because the land is disputed by the two," Chelimo said.
He explained that over 35,000 people were affected, saying their children walk over 10km in the mountains to school.
Chelimo added that the Benet occupied 6,000 hectares of land without reliable water points and pit latrines for the few dilapidated schools.
The Kapchorwa district education officer, Mike Chetoek, told the committee led by MP James Kubeketerya (Bunya East) that assessing the progress of UPE and USE schools in eastern and northern regions that transportation of materials was expensive.
"Costs of transporting construction materials are so high in Kapchorwa because of the hilly terrain.
We always get materials from Moroto and Amudat, which makes construction of one class as expensive as two classes in Budaka. Imagine transporting two tonnes on a truck costs us sh200,000 while seven tones costs sh400,000," Chetoek said.
He said in 2008, the district registered 20 pupils in Division One out of the 4,300 who sat PLE, attributing the poor performance to poor feeding and lack of accommodation for teachers, who walk long distances to school.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
