Secondary school learners in Bunaddu village, Bukakata sub-county, Masaka district are still scathed by the unavailability of schools in the area, which has forced most of them to go fishing, in abide to earn a living.
This crisis has been sparked off by government’s failure to operationalise its only secondary seed school, situated in the area.
Adding yeast to the already fermented bread, the only secondary school that is situated in the area is private-oriented, and was auctioned recently.
Against this background, students decried the unavailability of a nearby school from where to resume their studies, and have ventured into fishing activities on landing sites of Kaziru, Lambu, Naziri, all situated in the said sub-county, to earn a living.
In 2019, using funds borrowed from the World Bank, government constructed this seed school at a cost of 2.21 billion shilllings in Bunaddu Village, Bukibonga parish, Bukakata Sub-county.
According to the operational roadmap, the school in question was supposed to have been completed and operational by February 2021. To the astonishment of many, it is not operational to this day, yet construction works were finalised.
The LC1 Chairperson for Bunaddu village, John-Bosco Nyanzi says that most students have overwhelmingly decided to go fishing, while others have resorted to doing petty income generating activities to get means of livelihood.
He says that residents from parishes of Songa and Bukibongo are still confused on the next coarse of action, because they had hopes of their sons and daughters accessing educational services in the said school.
He added that parents cannot afford to take their kids to far away schools with boarding facilities, owing to limited sources of earning, which have been worsened by Covid-19 pandemic.
The LC3 chairperson for Bukakata Sub-county, Aloyzious Jjuuko says that many students have decided to do other petty income generating activities like fish roasting, selling silver fish, due to the fact that there is no any other secondary school in the area.
He urges government to quickly operationalise the said seed school for learners to access their basic right of education, instead of dropping out of school, at a time when the education sector in the country is still recovering from the negative impacts of Covid-19.
Deputy Resident District Commissioner for Masaka district Teopista Lule Ssenkungu says government regrets the prevailing crisis, and is aware of the state of educational affairs in Bukakata sub-county.
She says efforts are underway to operationalise the school for students to begin studying.
“It true, we delayed to open the seed school, but the good news is that next week, operations will kick start. We urge parents not to supply excuses when time comes, but take their sons and daughters to school. Like we have been doing, we are going to register parents and learners at the school. To that effect, business will begin on Monday. We would like to apologize, delaying to open the school was not intentional, but we thought it unwise to begin when most of the things are not set,”said Ms Lule.
Even as President Yoweri Museveni ordered the re-opening of schools in his end of year address on December 31st, 2021, many schools have not been able to resume operations due to negative impacts of Covid-19, and this has crippled learners efforts to further their education.
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