Africa-Press – Uganda. It has emerged that thousands of children of school-going age are yet to report to school three weeks into the second term of the schools’ calendar.
A survey by this newspaper revealed that this has been due to failure by parents to meet a demand by most schools that parents pay between 70 percent and 80 percent of the school fees, before their children are allowed in.
We understand the plight of the schools. An increase in the cost of utilities such as water and electricity, and spiralling cost of items such as sugar, maize flour, rice and cooking oil have forced them to pass on the bill to the parents.
That exacerbates the financial pressure on parents who are about to buckle under the weight of very high cost of living. The populace has been left on its own. Government is either clueless or simply away without leave.
Pronouncements such as the one made in January directing schools to maintain the fees structure for the end of 2022 pending guidance from the Education ministry, just like the one of 2021 that required schools to seek “express permission” before increasing school dues were ignored.
Government was impotent in the face the schools’ defiance.
Government needs to take more interest in matters education. It needs to act decisively. Whereas Mr Museveni has previously dismissed as “primitive economics” calls for the introduction of subsidies, if selectively introduced to assist schools purchase grain and cereal from warehouses under the Uganda Warehouse Receipt System Authority (UWRSA); or sugar, soap, cooking oil from the manufacturers’ at ex-factory price and the introduction of special utility tariffs for schools should be enough concessions to make schools listen when government directs against hiking school fees.
While at it, we should be having a rethink about the manner in which we have so far gone about privatisation.
We are not against privatisation and letting the private sector take the lead in matters of the economy, but there should be serious gatekeeping not to allow the provision of services such as water, electricity and telephony or health and education services be run as businesses.
If we are seeing the supply of water to hospitals cut off or the supply of electricity for street lighting in our towns and cities cut off, it is because we had the brilliant idea of treating utilities as profit making entities and not basic social services. The government needs to end its sabbatical.
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