By john Blanshe Musinguzi
UNEB last week released 2013 PLE results without
revealing how UPE schools performed. Luckily, analysts have catalysed the story
by analysing how schools performed. Interestingly, a total of 5,022 schools
registered no candidate with first grade. Those schools hosted 190,050 pupils
which is 32% of the total number of total candidates.
However, these analysts according to daily monitor
did not reveal whether these schools were under UPE or not. Most of us have
been yearning and are still yearning for UNEB to release statistics how UPE
schools perform as a nexus with private schools.
Personally, I will break this story. Last year, my
brother, who started schooling under government aided school sat for PLE and
scored 33 aggregates. We decided that he should repeat PLE but this time study
from a private school. At last he has scored 26 aggregates. Honestly, he is not
bright enough but at last he is jubilant in his own world after climbing this
hill which he failed climb last year. He sometimes joke that we who did not
repeat a class know nothing.
In addition, a primary school I went to for primary
school had no candidate who scored first grade. When I asked one teacher who
teach at the school, he told me that candidates who scored first grade at that
school were those from a private school that registered to seat for PLE from
there because it lack a UNEB centre. One student scored 9 aggregates, next
scored 10, followed by that one of 11 and finally 12 aggregates.
He claimed that private school which hare
increasingly gained popularity rob from them best students. He added that they
are those candidates scoring first grade. Yes, our district-Ntungamo for past
year has been named among best performing school. It is true but his success is
as result of explosion of private schools. Most parents opt for these private
schools instead of government aided schools because they consider them better
than.
Whereas UNEB doesn’t reveal how UPE schools perform,
on ground these schools are not doing well. Both government and teachers share
the blame. It cannot blame pupils from these schools for failing to excel.
On the side of government, it is under funding
education sector. These schools are not provided with enough and up to date best
book for teaching student. Teachers are paid less salary hence not motivated to
produce best grade. Government have failed to attract students who excel to the
teaching profession.
For the teachers, it totally a mess in rural areas,
most of them doesn’t teach but they continue to earn that little salary. They
also continue to stridently demand for better remunerations and salary
increment. During our days once in a while, DEO would visit schools to check
whether teachers are present. That is a history. Why?, ask education
minister.
It is clear in our village; both pupils and parents’
even poor ones are shunning UPE schools. If UPE system was initiated for poor
Ugandans who are realistically snubbing it then let government adjust this
system to be better or stop it.
I am sure; NRM government knows what to do to
improve quality of education in Uganda. It simple, reform teaching policy and
increase education funding. UNESCO Global education funding released recently
indicated that in a third of countries, less than 75% of teachers are trained.
Most of these countries are found in Sub-Sahara Africa.
The author is an undergraduate Journalism
and Communication student at Makerere University
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