Prime
Rising numbers weigh down Mityana schools
Affected. Pupils attend a lesson at Mityana Public School last Friday. PHOTO BY BARBARA NALWEYISO
What you need to know:
- According to the Capitation Grants expenditure guidelines, 50 per cent of the grant is supposed to be used on instructional materials, 30 per cent on co-curricular activities.
- In 2012, government also unveiled a similar scheme dubbed; “Universal Post-O’ Level Education and Training Programme” (Opolet) but the programme is also beginning to face similar challenges.
MITYANA. Mityana Municipality is grappling with understaffing and shortage of classrooms amid increasing number of pupils under the government’s Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme.
Municipal authorities say this has greatly contributed to poor academic performance in many public primary schools in the area.
The municipality has 37 primary schools implementing UPE scheme with a total enrolment of 11,546 pupils and only 320 teachers. The recommended pupil to teacher ratio is 1:53.
Mr James Muwanga Kironde, the municipality inspector of schools, said such a growing enrolment requires more teachers for effective learning of pupils.
“On average, each school has seven teachers and most of them are females. Whenever one goes on maternity leave, pupils have no one to teach them,” Mr Kironde said during an interview on Saturday
Mr Muwanga said with such situation they favour some schools with many pupils by giving them more teachers at the expense of others.
He said Mityana Public School has 17 teachers with a population of 1,018 pupils.
Besides understaffing, authorities said the schools lack enough classrooms while the available ones are dilapidated.
Ms Aidah Nagadya, the head teacher of Mityana Public School, said an average of 120 pupils use one classroom which is meant to accommodate 40 pupils. “We also do not have enough furniture and it is common to find eight pupils sharing a single desk,” Ms Nagadya said.
Mr Lawrence Kamya, the Mityana Municipal education officer, said they operate on a very small budget which cannot address challenges affecting the sector. “We have been receiving money to construct only two classroom blocks over the past three financial years yet most of the structures are dilapidated,” he said.
Ms Juliet Nakawuka, the deputy town clerk, said the municipality cannot do much because they are financially constrained.
“The situation is deplorable, but we also have nothing to do since we have a meagre budget for education and the municipality at large,” Ms Nakawuka said. According to the 2017/18 municipality budget frame work paper, the education department approved a budget of about Shs3.9 billion
The municipal authorities count on revamping parents and teachers association (PTA) and encouraging parents to contribute funds towards purchasing desks and facilitating the recruitment of private teachers to fill the staffing gaps.
Forging a way forward
“If the PTAs are well organised and members are sensitised on how best they can do this, much could be acquired. We have already seen this working in several communities and it will also work here without doubt,” Ms Nakawuka said.
In the 2017 Primary Leaving Examination results, Mityana Municipality was ranked 41 with 306 pupils passing in first grade, second grade (1,392), third grade (493) and fourth grade (403), while 282 failed completely.
UPE was introduced in 1997 and a decade later Universal Secondary Education was rolled out to enable eligible primary school graduates enrol in tuition-free secondary and vocational training institutions.
But both schemes are still affected by delayed release of funds, congestion and high student-to- teacher ratio and unclear feeding programme for both children and teachers in schools. Although government sends Shs8,000 as capitation grant per child under UPE scheme annually, schools have severally complained that they receive less money after deducting bank charges. Schools also receive an additional block grant of Shs100, 000 per term.
EXPENDITURE GUIDELINES
According to the Capitation Grants expenditure guidelines, 50 per cent of the grant is supposed to be used on instructional materials, 30 per cent on co-curricular activities (sports, clubs and others) .
School management. Fifteen per cent is allocated for school management (school maintenance, payment for utilities such as water and electricity) and five per cent on school administration.
In 2012, government also unveiled a similar scheme dubbed; “Universal Post-O’ Level Education and Training Programme” (Opolet) but the programme is also beginning to face similar challenges.
Funding. The Education ministry has for the last eight years been getting a reasonable share of the national cake and on average, Shs100billion is earmarked for basic education annually and a big portion usually goes on paying teachers’ salaries and putting up infrastructure. In 2016 /17 and 2017/118 fiscal years, the sector enjoyed the biggest share of the national cake with an allocation of 2.4trillion and Shs2.5trillion respectively.
