The shadow of COVID 19 on Uganda’s public schools

Whereas article 30 of our constitution guarantees that all persons have a right to education which has been ensured by the initiation of Universal Primary Education (UPE) for the primary school age going children, it doesn’t on the other hand caters for the high enrolment of pupils in the public school which ultimately puts an insurmountable pressure on the teachers (which in most cases are few, exhausted and fatigued as a result of a single teacher teaching all the subjects per class in most instances) of those institutions. It is not news in Uganda that the universality of education puts emphasis on enrolment (access) rather than quality. With the closure of schools for over 18 months as a result of the global pandemic, the public schools have suffered increase in the number of pupils and students enrolling to attain education with the opening of the sector on 10^th January 2022.

This is partly because parents were and are still afraid of sending their children back to the private schools where they were previously enrolled with the fear of losing money (in tuition), since they are still afraid that schools might be closed again with the daily statistics of increasing infection of the COVID 19 variant, Omicron – by the Ministry of Health. It appears that parents do not want their hard-earned monies to again go to waste as was the case in March 2020 by the private schools and as such, they’ve resorted to sending their children to public schools, worsening the already existing overcrowding dilemma in those institutions. The parents’ fears are justified in a way, considering the volatility of the sector.

Primary Two Pupils having a lesson

This is the case for my school (St. Kalori Bugwe Primary School) and so many other public schools, where a classroom of the lower primaries have over 100 students. With what we already know about the public schools (automatic promotion, high enrollment rates, etc) coupled with the disrupted learning – it has put pressure not only on the teachers of such institutions but also the facilities as well. One can only imagine how depleting it is to manage, control and tutor a classroom with such a volume of learners;

i.              Who had barely started the academic year but are now in the next class

ii.            Some who had used the automatic promotion rule to go to the next class and are now in the succeeding class i.e automatic promotion from primary two and shortly after starting school, lockdown came into force which saw the closing of schools and are now in primary three.

Objectively, if such a learner is to excel to the next class, the overseeing teachers have to do three times the work that is required for a particular singular class, but then again, knowing what we know – what hope is there for such a learner?

The newly instituted abridged curriculum (for primary 2-7, senior 2-4 and senior 6) cannot compensate for this. A new approach needs to be put in place to cater for this mishap to address the different individual learners’ needs and abilities. The situation is even dire for such classes that do not have sitting infrastructures with such high volume of learners, the teachers cannot effectively check for the understanding of their learners since even a walking space is non-existing. A teacher cannot know his/her learners by name, taking daily attendance has to happen while the learners are entering their classroom for ease.

One cannot help but imagine that a generation in the future will suffer insufficient workforce (coupled with incompetency) if this is not seen with an eagle’s eye and a workable solution enforced.

The ministry of Education should wake out of this nightmare and steer education to a glorious path of developing capable and functional citizens, or else, the future generations will not be kind to us!

JishaX

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