Build more secondary schools

SENIOR One selections last Tuesday. As usual, it was disappointment for many parents. Some ‘camped’ at Kyambogo where the exercise took place to ask ‘see’ particular headteachers. Others monitored the events closely, with their fingers crossed. At the end of the exercise, over 100,000 of the estimated 250,000 pupils who qualified for secondary education were not admitted to S1. Therefore government faces a big task planning for the future of the hundreds of thousands of pupils who fail to get places in its supported schools. The situation will certainly worsen when the first UPE group sits PLE in two years’ time. Estimates show that over one million candidates will sit PLE, three times the number that sat last year. The much publicised plan to build vocational training institutions at every sub-county should also be implemented as soon as possible. The bubble is about to burst. Failure to absorb UPE ‘graduates’ in post-primary institutions will dent the scheme’s image. Beware of the challenge.ENDS.