Pupils, parents face arrest over absenteeism

EDUCATION

NAMUTUMBA - Authorities in Namutumba district have threatened to arrest pupils and students together with their parents for failure to report to their respective schools.

Namutumba district vice-chairperson, John Naloka said the operation will be done jointly with local leaders, office of the Resident District Commissioner and technical staff, starting Monday, February 25, 2019.

Naloka also revealed that the idea was reached at after a large number of pupils failed to report back to their respective schools and have no genuine reasons.

He sounded the warning while presiding over the thanks-giving ceremony of St. Patrick S.S in Nabisoigi town council, Namutumba district.

He asserted that the move is aimed at improving education standards in the district.

He further attributed the increase in number of pupils that passed 2018 UCE in grade one to the several mechanisms used by current district leaders to improve the education standards.

In the recently released 2018 UCE results, Namutumba district had 370 pupils pass in grade one as compared to 2017 where only 100 pupils passed in grade one.

Naloka further hailed the director of St. Patrick S.S for the hard work which enabled their school to register 3 students in first grade as compared to many private and government schools which did not achieve this in the district.

The director of the school, Julius Mwanje attributed their performance to collaboration with some of the well performing schools in the central region.

He asked area authorities to construct a permanent water source for the school and a building to ease service delivery to the community.

He also gave out cash prizes of sh50,000 to the best performing students and best teachers appreciating them for the good performance.