UNATU boss named in Bridge Academies saga

PIC: From left, Bridge International Academics representative John Aluba, Country director Andrew White and legal officer Godwin Muhwezi showing journalists education certificates of their teachers during a press conference at their head offices in Bukoto on Tuesday. (Credit: Nancy Nanyonga)

KAMPALA - Officials at Bridge International Academies have accused the secretary general of Uganda National Teachers' Union (UNATU), James Tweheyo of working with Education International to fight against them in their mission to provide "quality education" to children in Uganda.

The country director of Bridge International Academies - Uganda, Andrew White, alleged that Education International (EI) is funding people in Uganda to fight them.

"Tweheyo is on the board of EI and is among the people the union is using to fight us so that we do not provide quality education to the children of Uganda," he told reporters on Tuesday.

"We were hurt when on Teachers' Day this year, Tweheyo said our schools are sub-standard, do not have latrines, that we do not teach the Ugandan curriculum. Our schools have all the necessary requirements to teach, but there is a lot of malice going on."

White was asked who he thinks is behind the current saga the academies are facing.  This was during a press conference held at Bridge main offices in Bukoto.

Education International (EI) is a global union federation (GUF) of teachers' trade union consisting of 401 member organizations in 172 countries and territories that represent over 30 million education personnel from pre-school through university.

White said they are not here to fight the government, but work together as partners to provide high quality education to children and parents who would otherwise be unable to afford high quality education.

Bridge International Academies are non-profit-making education service providers officially launched in Uganda in February last year with seven campuses.

US billionaire Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and the UK government are the major funders of the academies across the globe with the intention of providing education services to poor pupils.

The schools also operate in India and Nigeria, and have entered into a partnership with the Liberian government to run its primary schools.

According to its administration, it has an enrolment of about 12,000 pupils and employs over 800 workers in the country. They have been operating on a provisional license.

 It has a fees structure of sh40, 000 for pre-primary pupils while sh80, 000 for both primary four to primary six pupils.  They have not yet started primary seven.

Under the Bridge International model, teachers read scripted lessons word-for-word from a tablet computer that also records student attendance and assessments.