Difficult times for Kipsiro’s former school

Nov 02, 2010

A cold breeze sweeps across, making us shiver before a dense mist clears above Mt. Elgon National Park. Baboons limp forward from the dense forest, hoping from one maize garden to another in search of something to eat.

By Frederick Womakuyu

A cold breeze sweeps across, making us shiver before a dense mist clears above Mt. Elgon National Park. Baboons limp forward from the dense forest, hoping from one maize garden to another in search of something to eat.

Very few pupils of Primary Seven in Chesimat Primary School, a stone’s throw from the park are able to see this. Three quarters are absent, harvesting maize at home and are away because it is very cold. Only 15 pupils out of 46 are present today.

Since the school was founded in the 1980s, it has never produced any pupil in first grade, except one athlete.

The athlete is none other than Moses Kipsiro, the double Commonwealth gold medallist in the recent Commonwealth games in New Delhi, India.

For decades, the school had only three teachers for the average of 800 pupils in the school until recently when four more teachers joined, bringing the total to seven. The head teacher is the seventh member of the staff and he has to do both administrative work and teaching, lest a class ends up without a teacher.

For teachers completing the syllabus is a herculean task; for pupils understanding what the teachers have taught in this school is almost impossible due to poverty and ignorance in the area.

On average, every teacher except one walks a distance of over 25km everyday from Bukwo town to Chesimat to teach in this remote school.

The school does not have any library or laboratory to boast of and none of the pupils has ever touched a textbook.

The school has no female teachers, making it difficult for the female pupils to express their reproductive health problems. Issues like menstruation are a challenge to girls, and when girls experience them, they stay away from school due to shame.

As a result, most of the girl children are dropping out of school to get married.

Erimiya Lenard, the man who mentored Kipsiro, says the culture of the area also encourages early marriages.

“After boys or girls are circumcised in Bukwo, they often drop out of school to get married because they believe they have been initiated into adulthood and are ready for marriage,” adds Lenard.

Kipyeko says every year, about 15 girls in Primary Seven drop out and get married. “Last week, three girls dropped out and got married. They had registered for PLE so I am in the process of convincing them to return and sit for PLE,” he explains.

Kipsiro only pride of the school
Fred Kipyeko, the headmaster, says Kipsiro was at Chesimat Primary School from 1994 to 2000 and sat Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), scoring a second grade.

“He is the only pride we have. The school is always at the bottom of Uganda’s academic ladder and we have never got any first grade since it was founded,” he says.

Kipyeko explains that between March and October, it rains from morning to evening and three quarters of the pupils and the teachers do not report to the school. The road leading to the school also becomes impassable and no public transport exists.

Kipyeko urges the Government to construct staff quarters for teachers, provide meals to the pupils, increase the number of teachers at the school and also provide library materials and construct more classrooms to attract and retain pupils.

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