Africa-Press – Uganda. Budaka District has set strategies, including subjecting head teachers to demotion to improve academic performance in Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE).
The district chairman, Mr Emmanuel Pajje, told that poor performance in exams should be dealt with.
“The district cannot continue to register such poor results in various government schools. Starting next year, teachers who will register a high number of failures in the forthcoming 2024 PLE will be asked to step aside and demoted,” he said.
Mr Pajje made the remarks during an engagement meeting with a team from the Office of the President at the Budaka District at the weekend.
The meeting was attended by the district executive committee, heads of department, district Security committee and sector heads.
Mr Pajje attributed the high school dropouts to absenteeism and lack of commitment among teachers.
During the meeting, a performance report for the 2015 to 2022 UPE cycle was presented by Citizen Initiative for Democracy and Development [CIDD-Ug].
The report indicated that about 54 percent of the pupils who enrolled in Primary One in 2015 didn’t complete the primary cycle in 2022. The analysis covered the districts of Budaka and Pallisa, all found in Bukedi Sub-region.
The programme director for CIDD-Ug, Mr Moses Kagwa, said most of the learners below Primary Six in the districts also don’t know how to read and write.
“The education sector demands serious intervention,” Mr Kagwa said.
The district planner for Budaka District, Mr Shaban Kabise, said they have increased budgetary allocation to the education sector in the district.
“The education sector takes the highest percentage of 53 percent, Health stands (15 percent), Production (3.8 percent), Roads (3.7 percent) and water (1.7 percent). We believe this will help to improve academic performance in the education sector,” he said.
The senior education officer, Ms Hanifah Mugala, said they have enhanced the monitoring of schools to fight absenteeism.
The chief administrative officer, Mr Elly Piwang, said they still have staffing gaps. “With the growing population, there is a need to recruit more teachers and health staff. We have inadequate midwives across all the health facilities,’’ she said.
Mr James Tweheyo, a commissioner for the office of the RDC Secretariat in the Office of the President, said they were in the district to monitor government programmes.
“The government sends a lot of money to districts to implement various projects under different sectors, but is there value for money? This is what we are trying to ascertain,” Mr Tweheyo said.
Performance index
Budaka is among the districts in the country which registered the highest number of failures in the 2023 PLE.
It recorded 1,303 failures [U]. 509 failed to sit for the 2023 PLE and about 238 passed in Division One across the 59 primary schools.
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