Government aided school primary and secondary schools in Kagadi District have registered huge turn up of students for term three amidst shortages of facilities like classroom, laboratory equipment, staff quarters and teachers according to the school heads.
Ramadan Nyondo Barongo, the Head teacher Kagadi government aided Secondary school who doubles as Area UNEB Supervisor says out of the total enrollment of 3,200 students at his school 2,000 students have already reported at the beginning of term 3 with over 60 teachers reporting for duty.
"This has never been the case for the time i have been here, but i'm surprised that on the first date having such a number, normally even during mid term you would have a number of absentees, this is proof that we need more classrooms, because now if day one is like this, what will happen at the end of the week" Nyondo wondered
Nyondo notes that despite the huge number of students, the school only has 22 teachers on government payroll out of 70 teaching staff. He asked the Ministry of Education to reconsider the school in laboratory equipment , new curriculum Books , facilities and staff recruitment.
"We are doing our best but we get constrained most of the times, imagine the population at school, only 22 government paid teachers, out of the 70 teaching staff, these people qualify we appeal to the ministry to consider recruiting more teachers, but also our laboratories are not doing fine, equally with the new curriculum books" he said
Abigaba Emmanuel, the Kagadi model primary school head teacher, is appealing to the government to consider them for more teachers, requirements like textbooks so that they can deliver.
"When it comes to number of pupils turning up for school that we have achieved, but we also still have issues of teacher gap, requirements like textbooks building structures to accommodate the big numbers and so on, so we appeal to be considered because this school is one of the oldest school in Kagadi we need to hold it's name high" Abigaba said
Vincent Barakuraha, St Aold Tibeyarirwa secondary school in Muhooro Kagadi, wants the government to also consider the issue of lunch for students at school.
"we appreciate government commitment to better education by putting up free education, but the issue of meals is a big problem in schools, if government can look into it the better, because during the morning hours students concentrate but after lunch some don't concentrate probably they have not had lunch, we still have parents here who can't provide lunch and live in absolute poverty" He said
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Barakuraha still cites challenges in the implementation of the new curriculum which is so demanding in terms of requirements yet most teachers have not understood how to implement it.
"This we have complained for quite some time on the issue of the new curriculum, we have to implement what even school heads don't understand because even when they called for training a few teachers were called but school heads were not called, so i think it is better for government to consider more trainings on how to implement the curriculum because it is a good one since i looks at hands on which is better given the changing world" He added
Bartholomew Bukenya, the Kagadi district education officer acknowledges most of the challenges schools highlight, confirming how the government is not seated towards addressing them.
"Most of these concerns of low staffing, structures, requirements have been raised before as education officers in the districts, we have to the same effect made reports to our mother ministry the ministry of education and we have been promised that they will be dealt with, my appeal to the ministry is to consider these schools case by case but also school heads try to fit into the current environment and deliver accordingly as we wait for government to address a number of them which am sure can't be handled at the same time" Bukenya said
