Africa-Press – Uganda. Residents of Mulanda Sub-county in Tororo District have embarked on constructing grass-thatched houses for teachers’ accommodation at various government-aided primary schools in a bid to limit absenteeism.
The residents say lack of staff accommodation has been one of the factors, alongside shortage of staff, lack of classrooms and low pay, that has for long affected academic performance in most government-aided schools in the district.
Mr Alfred Ofumbi, the chairperson of Parents-Teacher Association (PTA) at Kurobudi Primary School, said on Monday that they came up with the initiative two years ago after realising that most of the teachers travel long distances to the school and as result, they arrive late and leave early.
Mr Ofumbi said so far, they have constructed six grass-thatched houses at Kurobudi Primary School to ensure teachers stay within the school and perform their duties efficiently.
The school has 10 teachers, with a pupil enrolment of about 1,000.
“Under this initiative, parents have so far constructed several houses for the teachers at the schools. The pupil and teacher retention has so far improved,” he said.
Under the arrangement, parents contribute Shs3,500 per child per term towards the implementation of the project.
Kurobudi Primary School is located 50 kilometres away from Tororo Town and is one of the schools found in hard-to-reach areas.
Some teachers say they spend about Shs20,000 on transport daily, something they say is unsustainable.
Mr Ofumbi added that they are engaging the leadership in other sub-counties in the district to embrace the initiative.
Mr Jimmy Opio, a resident of Mulanda Sub-county and parent of some pupils at the school, said they will continue supporting the project and accused the government of abandoning rural schools.
“We have no option but to do it ourselves because for long, the government has been reminded of its duty to construct houses for teachers’ accommodation but in vain,” he said.
Mr Samuel Oburu, the school head teacher, said construction of grass-thatched houses by the locals has relieved teachers from moving long distances on a daily basis.
“One might underlook the quality of these houses but to me, they have helped because I no longer quarrel with my teachers for coming late or absenting themselves,” he said.
“Besides, it has also improved the safety of school property and learning because the teachers are now able to give remedial lessons to the learners,” he added.
Mr Fida Onyango, the chairperson of the school management committee, said this also eased monitoring and supervision of the teachers.
“When teachers stay within the school, it becomes easy to monitor them. We have tried the venture and we are seeing results,” he said.
Mr Onyango said they have also started raising funds for the construction of semi-permanent staff houses under the same project.
The district education officer, Mr Albert Odoi, acknowledged that the lack of teachers’ houses is a big problem across the district.
“For the community to come up and put up some structures at the school means a lot and this gives credit to the parents,” he said. He added: “We always face challenges during the rainy season where the teachers, who commute from distant places, deliberately absent themselves for several weeks,” he said.
He said Kurobudi Primary School is going to become a model school for benchmarking for the project if it is to be rolled out in the entire district.
