Africa-Press – Uganda. Fire-fighting guidelines for public places, including schools, look really simple bar the attendant costs: must have fire extinguishers on all buildings.
Specifically for schools, there must be an obstacle-free emergency exit and escape routes, and there should be no burglar proof barricades on windows.
Yet the country again faced an avoidable tragedy on Tuesday when 11 pupils of Salama School of the Blind in Mukono District perished in a fire outbreak in their dormitory. Already visually impaired and consigned to a lifetime of darkness, it was a double jeopardy of darkness for the pupils as accounts of the survivors suggest that they had desperately attempted to make their way to safety through the windows only to be met with the burglar proofing.
The safety measures were designed following arguably the worst school fire tragedy in the country when 20 pupils of Buddo Junior School died in their dormitories in April 2008. The incident had seen the government make a semblance of deliberate efforts to inspect schools for fire preparedness but following the tragedy that claimed blind girls in Salama, it has emerged that the Ministry of Education has no capacity to undertake the inspections.
It is already bad enough that the government can openly admit such a failure, but even in the face of the alleged budgetary constraints, the Ministry of Education appears to have no alternatives at its fingers to police schools. This has tragically left the schools to think for themselves and where the proprietors also look aside, the learners must fend for themselves.
In 2008, it was Yvonne Namaganda. At just 10, her heroics in battling at the cost of her own life to save her friends from the fire humbled the nation. On Tuesday, the Pretty Parwoth, 13, joined Namaganda in a similar martyrdom.
It is chillingly embarrassing to say the nation is proud of these young heroines because the same nation let them down. And killed them.
The government is unabashed in admitting it has no capacity to carry out its responsibility of ensuring that safety measures are adhered to, but where does this leave the proprietors of these schools?
Police have already recorded 19 school fire incidents this year alone. Most of these fires happen at the dormitories.
Yet if an on-the-spot check was carried out today, several dorms will be found to have impregnable burglar proofing. But like these tragedies keep reminding the nation, if it is against thieves the schools install these metals, life is more valuable; if it is to stop the learners from leaving the dorms irregularly, it also stops them from leaving at their most desperate moment when they must save their own lives.
For a school proprietor or administrator waiting on the government is akin to waiting for tragedy to jolt you into reality. Some of the fire safety measures do not need the government to inspect. They only need a sense of responsibility. And this must start and end with the schools.
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