Kadaga vows to revamp Busoga education

By Moses Mulondo

THE Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has vowed she will undertake various measures to reverse the trend of Busoga being the worst performing region in the Primary Leaving Examinations in the country.

In the 2013 PLE results, Busoga had six out of the 10 worst performing districts. These included Kween, Bulambuli, Bukwo, Kaliro, Luuka, Iganga, Buyende, Bugiri, Bududa and Namutumba.

The education minister Jesca Alupo blamed this poor performance to the high rate of absenteeism for both teachers and pupils.

“You all saw the PLE results in which Busoga was the worst performing. We need various initiatives to reverse that trend. The poor performance is partly due to lack of teaching materials,” Kadaga said.

The speaker made the remarks yesterday while receiving a consignment of pamphlets from investors in the education sector who had partnered with her.

The investors included the managing director of Luuka plastics Badru Muwanga and his colleague Alex Mutebi, a Ugandan businessman based in Denmark.

“I have done this as part of our corporate social responsibility and as a person who hails from the Busoga region,” said Muwanga.

He said they had so far produced 30000 books which include 15,000 pamphlets containing questions and answers and 15000 pamphlets for teachers’ marking guide.

“We shall distribute these books in the whole of Busoga targeting primary six and primary seven pupils. We believe this will improve the performance in the region,” Kadaga explained.

Alex Mutbi explained that the major reason why rural schools do not perform well as urban schools is because the former do not have adequate teaching materials.

The speaker said she would involve various stakeholders to launch a Busoga Education Program to catapult the region to greater heights.

“The poor performance is not because the people of Busoga are not intelligent. We need interventions like these instruction materials. Busoga has produced the best scientists in this country,” she argued.

Kadaga said provision of food to the pupils and other factors which have a bearing on the general performance of the pupils would also be addressed.