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As learners both in primary and secondary schools start their first term of the academic school year on Monday, in Kapelebyong district, 463 learners did not find out their results from the previous year after their report cards were confiscated.

The Parents Teacher Association (PTA) leadership of Akoromit Primary School confiscated report cards over parents’ failure to pay the term sh10,000 for PTA fees.

The affected learners are not allowed to report to school unless they complete paying the money.

“We agreed as parents that each child pays sh10,000 a term to enable us to pay a teacher who is not on the government payroll and for the development of the school,” said Lazarus Edoku the PTA chairman.

Edoku who maintains that they will not admit children who have not paid PTA fees, spent the whole of Monday receiving children who had completed and those who did not pay, he sent back.

“Some parents who had not completed moved with their children to clear the debt while those who did not come with their parents and had not completed were sent back. Some parents have not paid for the whole year,” Edoku said.

Charles Okorio the school head teacher said that he joined the school in 2019 and found that parents had agreed for each learner to pay that fee termly.

“The report cards are in the custody of the chairman PTA, and I have no say over it. When they sat in a general meeting, they resolved for each parent to pay that amount of money and that resolution was sent to the district,” Okorio said.

The school had an enrolment of 1,015 learners which Edoku said that only 552 learners had paid but on Monday, only 100 learners reported for the first term with the majority being the newcomers.

“The funds were meant for completing a house meant for girls to change their clothes during menstruation, some for borehole maintenance.

Museveni against charging learners

President Yoweri Museveni has continued talking tough on teachers in public schools that charge learners money calling such individuals saboteurs of the government's free education for all programs (UPE and USE).

"We said free education is a way to abolish ignorance. We started on this in 1997, but because of not listening to us, you get resistance," Museveni said while in Teso last year.

Museveni said that repeated calls to remove fees from government schools have gone unheeded.

"The head teachers still bring back school charges and yet we are sending so much money here for UPE," he said.

"In Teso, there are 723 primary schools where we send sh7b for Teso only, and we said for the children of the poor to study, remove school charges, but you still find people chasing them from school." Museveni lamented.

"We told these people that if the money we were sending them wasn't enough, they should tell us to send more, but don't send children back home. But they don't understand that to get rid of ignorance, the only medicine is education for all," said Museveni.

"We intend to introduce a new law prohibiting the charging of fees in public schools." If you want to charge money, go, and build a private school. You will soon hear about the war on that issue.”