BUCHICHA PRIMARY SCHOOL OVERWHELMED BY PUPILS INFLUX


Article by KATONGOLE ARNOLD

“ Desks aren’t enough , we sit six pupils on a desk and writing becomes so hard and difficult since we are all congested.” Comments of Amina Nabanda a pupil in Buchicha primary school.

Buchicha primary school is a public school, located in Mbale Municipality in Mbale district. The school faces the challenge of congestion, The administration estimates the total number of pupils at 2700 pupils. This influx in the number of pupils is attributed to COVID-19 according to John Wafuba deputy Chief Administrative Officer of Busia municipality , wafuba affirmed to the matter of fact that when COVID-19 hit, many neighboring schools to Buchicha primary school which were all private schools like st.John primary school closed down business post COVID-19 and all pupils had to enroll to Buchicha primary school.

This situation has left the teacher-student ratio very low affecting both pupils and teachers, the school has only twenty-five teachers to serve 2700 students. Michael Bwayo a teacher at Buchicha primary school says there’s pupil under load in terms of class work and exercises since all teachers have the mandate of marking exercises and class activity books , you find one teacher has 200 books to mark per class and to be effective you give less numbers so as to be able to mark all the pupils’ books

“ we have informed all concerned stakeholders and authorities about the shortage of staff to serve the huge students population but every time we do a follow-up, we are informed that the service commission has not yet distributed teachers.” Comments of Emmanuel Kisambiira parents representative on the PTA . The school is also faced with scarcity of resources where a class has only three desks and the infrastructure is lacking in terms of buildings, washrooms and this has resulted into girl pupils contracting candida due to poor hygiene according to Kisambiira .

The situation at Buchicha primary school continues to depict the situation in many public schools and how the future of education lies in government restructuring the priorities of education, funding and fair regulation to the private sector investing on the sector.

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