Kalaki parents escorting daughters for night preps

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Inadequate learner accommodation in Kakure Seed Secondary School in Kalaki district, coupled with fear of unscrupulous individuals, has forced parents to escort their daughters in senior four to school for evening preps daily.

Headteacher Moses Ongwara says the parents started escorting their daughters in the evening after the school got an examination centre number last year. However, the boys move alone.

According to Ongwara, dedicated parents go to great lengths to ensure their daughters receive an education, with some trekking over four kilometres to bring them to school for evening preps. They then wait patiently at the nearby Kakure Training Centre until classes end at 9:30 pm, before escorting their children home, with some even ferrying them on bicycles.

‘Risky for parents and girls’

Kalaki district secretary for education and health Ketty Agwang said it’s risky for the parents and the girls to be escorted to school because of the danger lurking in the darkness.

Agwang said the education ministry guidelines don’t allow schools to accommodate children in the classrooms or hall as they are doing but called upon parents to support the construction of the hostel.

Against this backdrop of dedication and sacrifice, parents have come together to launch a collective effort, contributing shillings 10,000 per term per child, aiming to raise a total of shillings 260 million for the construction of a much-needed girls' hostel.

The Parents Teachers Association (PTA) funds so far collected by parents since the beginning of the term is shillings 21 million for building a hostel, which is expected to accommodate between 60-100 girls.

Teso Affairs state minister, who doubles as Kalaki County Member of Parliament, Dr Clement Kenneth Ongalo Obote, presided over the launching of the construction of the PTA Girls hostel on August 7, 2024.

Ongalo highlighted that the Government does not fund the construction of housing facilities for students and they don’t encourage schools to make accommodation compulsory, but parents can agree to do it themselves.

Minister Ongalo launching the construction of Kakure Seed SS girls hostel in Kalaki distict. (Photo by Emmanuel Alomu)

“I'm happy that the parents followed my advice so that students who walk for six to seven kilometres to access this school daily can be accommodated and supervised here because the Government has no funding for this,” he said.

The minister, however, was against the idea of escorting children to school saying this should be temporary because this puts the life of parents at risk.

“As parents escort this one girl to school, what happens to the security of those girls who remain at home?” he asked.

Ongalo contributed 31 bags of cement out of his pledge of 100 bags for the construction of the hostel and he also pledged 200 iron sheets for the same.

Julius Odeke, the Kalaki district communications officer, who represented the chief administrative officer (CAO), promised to ensure that the district would come in to support the construction of the hostel.

Kalaki Seed SS was established in 2015 as a result of Kakure sub-county and Kaberamaido district council's resolutions. It has a total enrolment of 691 students in both O and A'level, with 312 girls and 379 boys. Twenty-six staff are on the payroll.

The ten acres that the school is situated on were donated by the Soroti Catholic Diocese.