HAS ANY MONEY BEEN SET A SIDE TO RESPOND TO TRAGEDIES IN THE LEARNING INSTITUTIONS?
Tragedies In The Learning Institutions
By: Hildah Nsimiire
Worth Noting:
- The worries make the learners and teachers to study and work from a toxic environment though learning institutions are anticipated to be haven for them.
- Most of these problems are brought in by the public actors who no longer want to value education for instance during covid 19 pandemic, the learning institutions took longer to be opened and it is not yet a year since learning institutions re-opened but school related issues are at the peak.
- Besides fire outbreaks, the arts teachers have been on strike since June 15th, 2022, a day after the budget was read over the science teachers’ salary increment.
During the reading of the year 2022/2023 financial budget, shs 4.4 trillion was allocated to the education sector and no money has been put aside to respond to calamities that have been happening yearly in the learning institutions. Many cases of fire outbreaks happened in the year 2021 and have continued to occur even in the year 2022 as over twenty learning institutions have so far registered cases of fire outbreaks since the year begun.
At the beginning of this year 2022, the fire outbreak cases began with New Crest Junior School in Kawempe and Cecilia primary school on 15th January. As the time went on, more cases started to increase in other schools such as Bupadhengo and Buluba Day and Boarding primary School, St John’s school in Kyotera, Nanziga SDA Primary school among more others. Research shows that when these fire outbreaks occur, they do not only lead to loss of lives of students but devastate the school dormitories destroying learners’ property such as books, suitcases, mattresses and beds.
Once the property is destroyed, it cannot be restored back. This ends up affecting both the learners, parents as well as teachers who invest in a lot of time and money purchasing the necessities thereby stigmatizing them by putting them under tension, pressure and fear of copying up to the new normal since they must start a fresh by copying the notes lost, teaching afresh and buying the necessities destroyed respectively.
The worries make the learners and teachers to study and work from a toxic environment though learning institutions are anticipated to be haven for them. Most of these problems are brought in by the public actors who no longer want to value education for instance during covid 19 pandemic, the learning institutions took longer to be opened and it is not yet a year since learning institutions re-opened but school related issues are at the peak. Besides fire outbreaks, the arts teachers have been on strike since June 15th, 2022, a day after the budget was read over the science teachers salary increment.
The Ministry of Public Service went ahead to threaten the arts teachers to terminate their contracts by 24th June which was unnecessary. The ministry would have instead encouraged the teachers affected by the policy to get back to class in a peaceful way, rather than threatening them. Both teachers had not yet healed from the effects of covid-19 pandemic so it would be ethical for the government not to take such radical decision of implementing the policy when the country is still in total economic crisis.
This kind of industrial action affected schools mostly in the Northern and Eastern regions where the teachers in the public schools laid down their tools as a way of expressing their irritation. To resolve this, the government officials would have sat down on the roundtables with the members of Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) and negotiate on what should be done in a rightful manner than threatening the arts teachers that were fighting for their rights.
The government needs to always preserve some money specifically for responding to the calamities since they are continuing to be part and partial of the learning institutions without prior notice.
Conclusively, it’s the government’s role to ensure that whatever policy to be implemented does not affect the second party and this can only be addressed through engaging the targeted groups with the issue in generating the solution and by doing so, they will feel wanted.
Hildah Nsimiire
Concerned Citizen
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