Opinion: Ministry of Education, be pro-active for once and do your work
By Eunice Nankwanga Kasirye
What
is on my mind are the children, countrywide, who keep missing out on
their Uganda National Examinations at all levels because school
directors did not remit their registration fees to Uganda National
Examination Board (UNEB).
In reaction to
the unfortunate incidences, UNEB says pupils who missed exams could
register to write next year papers. Meanwhile, directors who are
probably still on run should be apprehended for prosecution. UNEB, also
cautioned parents to always take a caution while making decisions on
which schools to take their children to.
But
this evil has been going on for so many years. The ministry of
Education, the police, UNEB, parents and whoever is concerned is well
aware of this vice. Most of the victims of this evil are children who
end up in makeshift schools which mushroom day and night without a clear
road map on how they intend to have a sustainable operation. The major
reason why parents opt for these schools is they come with enticing and
seemingly manageable costs for schools fees and other dues.
The
parents often choose these risky schools because they can’t afford the
well established schools dues. These are parents who struggle to keep
their children at school despite the biting poverty they live in.
If
you really want to know what these parents go through, speak to the
administrators of these schools. The children study on frequent
pleadings from the parents to the school administrators, the parents
keep begging the administration to at least allow the children attend
class as they craft something from which to earn some money to clear
school fees.
Some parents make batter
trade where food items are supplied at the school in exchange for a
child’s school fees. Therefore the victims of this craftiness are not
the ‘Haves’ of this country, it is the ‘have-nots’. I think that
explains the laxity with which policy makers and enforcers handle this
issue.
The only time the checkers of the system will wake up is
when one of their own is a victim in some racket vice, at least
according to precedence.
Obviously
these schools are often private/individual owned. They leverage on
loans from microfinance institutions, they rent structures, they have a
lot of sensational promotion to attract numbers.
This
therefore means that they always operate on a deficit budget and the
only time the school has guarantee of cash is when the candidate classes
are clearing for Uganda National Examinations and sometimes a biggest
number of these children have school fees balances.
A situation
like this put the school owners in a very tempting situation to either
pick the available cash to clear personal demands or clear for the
candidate’s final exams.
I don’t condone
the conning of parents and the candidates, but where are the system
checkers? We have structures in this country entrusted to inspect the
education sector system, where is their check list?
Does
anyone out there, in the Ministry of Education for example, understand
the trauma subjected to a child made to repeat a class or miss final
term examinations?
Uneb understand the
dilemma the parents of children who go to such schools are put in. Why
is it every year the same vice happens and all we can get are empty
threats.
The chances of most of those
children to never go back to school are high. Some of them especially
the girls will be forced into early marriages, the boys could end up in
irresponsible activities to survive and even the morale of a struggling
pare/guardian to pay school fees for another year is challenged.
If
government has the capacity to monitor everyone’s mobile money
transaction to take away a percentage in form of taxes, monitor
everyone’s social media activiteis, issues access to examination
results, how cant there be a system to verify ones examination
registration using mobile phone prompts before the closing date?
If
the problem is examination fees, why can’t government just scrap off
the cost and use the other so many tax levies on every other thing to
cater for the gaps created? Why is it all about money but nothing to
tally with the services provided?
When I was growing up I used to
see people around schools called Inspectors of schools, do we still have
such people in place, if they are still there, what are their job
expectations. I think it is important that this government and her
agencies started getting serious with the people whose resource they are
entrusted with.
Let
the Ministry of Education come up with very stringent penalties against
the con men in which the parents can recover their money. This would
involve withdrawing the school operation, auctioning of the school
assets alongside individual prosecution of the culprits.
However,
the Ministry should have an emergency time table for candidates who
miss final exams for reasons beyond their own making instead of making
them repeat for a full year at a full cost.
The writer is a President of International Association of Women in Radio & Television (IAWRT) Uganda Chapter.
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