Bar ill-dressed parents from entering schools - Sseninde

The primary education state minister, Rosemary Sseninde, has condemned parents who dress indecently when going to school to visit their children.

"No school promotes indecent dressing. Parents are not acting as good examples to their children. The education ministry urged schools to not allow such parents because dress code matters a lot," Sseninde said.

This was during a press briefing at the Uganda Media Centre on the National Symposium on Creating Safe and Positive Learning Environment due to take place from September 19-20 at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala.

Sseninde said parents need to be firm and help in the creation of safe learning environments for their children adding that a lot of parents are irresponsible and do not even check their children's bags to see what they are carrying to school.

"Some of the children come early to school and go back home late. Some parents do not know what they are carrying in their bags. Sometimes they carry their books together with short skirts and change after school and then go to other places," Sseninde lamented.

The minister said this is negligence on the side of the parents and it leaves more work to be done in the creation of these safe learning environments for the children.

There have been rampant cases of sexual abuse of children and other forms of violence towards children even by teachers when at school.

According to the Uganda Violence Against Children Survey that was carried out by UNICEF, together with the ministry of gender, labour and social development in 2018, 35.3% of girls and 16.5% of boys in Uganda experienced child sexual abuse during their childhood.

The symposium comes at a time when children are reporting back to school and there is a pressing need for different concerned personnel to ensure that the children are in safe hands because they actually spend nine months in school and only three months at home annually.

"The primary objective of the learning symposium is to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to gather knowledge and understand the innovative approaches for the prevention of violence against children and establish concrete benchmarks for building safe learning environments," Sseninde said.

She also added that the ministry was working hard in various avenues such as establishing a positive legal and policy environment, fostering positive and progressive attitudes and behaviours, strengthening the capacity of key institutions and promoting child participation and empowerment to prevent and report cases of violence in schools.

Training of teachers is also being done to help fight against teachers who engage in corporal punishments and sexual abuse.

Sseninde highly discouraged parents who tend to negotiate with the suspects of violence against their children outside of court.

Some of the interest groups that the symposium is targeting include the education ministry, education development partners, civil society organisations, officials from district local governments, religious leaders and head teachers and senior women teachers.