Crisis As Uganda Struggles With Home Learning, Reopening Schools

More than 15 million school children in Uganda will be playing catch up to their peers in the region, after 18 months of lockdown - and still counting - during which access to learning has been minimal if not nonexistent.

The government is under pressure to reopen schools, first, on academic grounds, but also bearing in mind the economic consequences of long closures on the sector as owners of private schools are on the verge of having their properties auctioned to pay bank loans.

Some form of teaching and learning is taking place in high-end private and public schools, where parents can afford the cost of equipment, infrastructure and Wi-Fi, to have their children learn online but many public schools which enroll children from poor families remain closed, and studies of government's efforts to distribute printed learning materials for poorer families show that only 20% of households received these provisions.

Some educationists say delayed reopening will plunge the sector into a deeper human resource crisis while the government's pegged reopening of education institutions on all teachers and children aged 12 and above getting the Covid-19 jab remains, writes Julius Barigaba for the East African.