His orders follow an assessment that established that hundreds of pupils are yet to report for the third term of school, which opened more than two weeks ago. The assessment by the district authorities found that many of the children are accompanying their parents to gardens during school time.
Kitgum Resident District Commissioner William Komakech has called for a crackdown against pupils who have abandoned schools for farming.
His orders follow an assessment that established that hundreds of pupils are yet to report for the third term of school, which opened more than two weeks ago. The assessment by the district authorities found that many of the children are accompanying their parents to gardens during school time.
According to the assessment report, only 19.1 per cent of the pupils in the district have so far returned to school. The most affected are the sub-counties of Orom, Namokora and Mucwini, where families have migrated from their homes to farm in Lipan, a former hunting ground for communities within East Acholi.
The fertile soils in Lipan have lately seen large numbers of people scrambling to occupy it for farming.
English// Cue in; “We analyzed we found…
Cue out…children to school.”//
Luo //Cue in; “Gin ma wan…
Cue out...idye tim kunu.”//
Komakech says that an emergency district committee meeting convened recently sought for the intervention of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces in the five detaches bordering Lipan wilderness to rescue the children from the farms and support them to return to school.
He also says the committee has suggested for other deterrent measures such levying fine of 10,000 Shillings on parents and their subsequent arrest in case they are found with children at home or in farms.
English // Cue in; “Those people who…
Cue out….go to school.”//
Luo// Cue in; “Acwalo lok bot…
Cue out… Kitgum dong peke.”//
He adds that Local Council chairpersons, Sub-county Chairpersons and all school heads have been directed to compile a fresh list of children at home and in schools for a fresh verification exercise.
The District Education Officer Fred Owot welcomed the move to involve the army to retrieve the children whose future is being traded with farm works by their parents. He says the vice has also affected some pupils in candidate classes, a trend which is likely to affect the performance in the forthcoming Primary Leaving Examinations.
“If this vice continues like this, the performance of our pupils will be very poor, we have realized that even some of the children in Primary Seven in some schools haven’t yet reported because they are in gardens farming.”
The recently released Mock examination for Primary Seven Candidates revealed very low performances of pupils across the district. Out of the 2,236 pupils who sat for Mock, only four attained first grade and a total of 1669 getting Division U accounting for 51 Percent failure.
The worst performances were registered in the sub-counties of Namokora, Omiya Anyima, Kitgum Matidi, Mucwini, Labongo Layamo and Labongo Akwang were no single pupil secured a first grade. Kitgum district currently has an enrollment of 48,000 Pupils in Primary schools.
