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Buhweju leaders ask government for special education intervention
On the ground. Buhweju MP Francis Mwijukye addresses pupils and parents of Nsika Primary School in Buhweju District recently. Mr Mwijukye, said teachers don’t want to work in the district because it is a hard-to-reach and remote area. PHOTO BY FELIX AINEBYONA
What you need to know:
- Unattractive. The leaders say many teachers shun teaching in the district because it is a hard-to-reach area.
BUHWEJU. Leaders in Buhweju have asked government to design a special education programme for the district to attract teachers and keep children in school.
The area MP, Mr Francis Mwijukye, said teachers don’t want to work in the district because it is a hard-to-reach and remote area.
“Buhweju is a hard-to-reach area and also a hard one to stay in. You find children moving 3km to access school. That’s the same with teachers. It is difficult to serve in the area,” Mr Mwijukye said.
He added: “We do not have enough head teachers. There are no [staff] quarters for them, there is no electricity, and there are no good roads. This doesn’t encourage teachers from other areas to work in the district.”
Canon Jackson Tukahirwa, the head teacher of Nsika Primary School, said lack of descent accommodation for teachers is one of the biggest challenges affecting the education sector in the area.
Many teachers are accommodated in mud and wattle houses.
“The staff quarters are not descent, teachers stay in rooms with uncemented floor and un plastered walls, which makes a teacher dislike the profession and most of them run away from the district to where there are descent accommodation facilities,’’ Mr Tukahirwa said.
The district inspector of schools, Mr George Patrick Sabiti, said government should consider Buhweju ‘a special needs district’ and design special [education] intervention for transforming it.
“Buhweju is a difficult area to work in due to its poor terrain yet we are not getting hard-to-reach allowance, we have poor means of transport, and accommodation challenges. The education sector is poorly staffed. We, therefore, ask government to consider Buhweju as a special needs district and design unique interventions for it,” Mr Sabiiti said.
He added that many parents cannot afford sanitary pads for girls and other necessities for school going children.
School dropout
Ms Loicy Rwankangi, the district councillor for Burere Sub-county and secretary for gender and community-based services, said children trek long distances in search of water. This has made many of them to drop out of school.
“Children are the ones who fetch water in their families and they trek a distance of about 8km, which takes approximately three hours, and because they fetch water in the morning, they cannot reach school in time and this makes them lose morale and end up dropping out,” Ms Rwankangi said.
