Dancing started Aloet strike

Last year, Makerere University went on a series of strikes that left university and private property damaged. The riot police and military police were called in. Since then, several strikes have taken place in secondary schools all over the country. The most recent strike was at Teso College Aloet. Richard Otim reports. JAMES Ekweu an Old Boy of Teso College Aloet left the school on October 17, 1994, two months before his ‘A’ level final examinations. His class had been involved in a serious strike that left much of the school property vandalised. Six years later, on Tuesday, October 8, 2001, his former school went on strike again. Reason, the administration allegedly stopped the students from staging a disco dance with girls from a neighbouring secondary school, St. Mary’s Girls-Madera. The students went ahead with threats of destroying school property. Ekweu asserts, “for the case of Teso College, it is very unfortunate that most of these strikes have always had an element of food grievances in them.” He recalls of the ‘94 strike: “It was such a terrible strike. Students went on rampage destroying anything they could lay their hands on. They broke into the school farm and killed the fattest bull using hoes.” He says the strike took place on that year’s World Food Day celebrations and that the students had been promised meat and rice for lunch but instead were served with potatoes and fish stew. Another Old Boy of the school believes says: “Teso College has always been like that at every end of the year. The fourth year students, for egoistic reasons have a tendency tend to influence the lower classes to strike.” Reasons abound for such strikes that have plagued a good number of schools this year. But the reason of poor feeding and prohibited dances is not adequate to cause a strike. “It takes a party to cause a problem. Teachers, students and parents in this case in one way or the other would have played a role for a strike to occur,” Rev. Sr. Stella Tino, headteacher St. Mary’s SS Madera, explains. She says suffocated communication between the school administration and students has always been the breeding bed for any strike. “You have to talk to them [students]. Tell them what is available and what can’t be got immediately to avoid any misunderstanding,” Tino says. She hastens to add that a defiant generation of youths is another reason for strikes. “The youth of today are not like we were in the past. These ones listen to nobody as long as their instinct has told them to do anything. So we have to be cautious in handling them,” Tino observes. Mr Cads Oliba, headteacher, Teso College Aloet, believes it is a complex situation that has not affected his school only but several others. He says harshness of school administrations and poor feeding cannot be considered the sole causes of the strikes. Citing Ntare, Masaba and Amuria SS, he blames it all on the misconception of the children’s rights and liberalisation of student discipline. “There is globalisation. Our children read about what happens in other countries and tend to copy. The phenomenon stimulates their scope of demands that parents and schools at times can’t meet,” Oliba told Education Vision. He says poverty has had a role too in many of the strikes that have lately occurred in the country. He says his students, for instance, at times ask for something that the school had not budgeted for and wonders how a headteacher can meet such abrupt demands. “Poverty! Some parents can’t meet anything that the school would require them to meet for their children while at school like a music system so we have to go by the parents’ pockets,” Oliba adds. “It is the reason we could not help in the situation where our students recently demanded that they be granted a dance with students from another school,” Oliba explains. He says such unplanned situations mean budgetary strain on the school’s meagre resources. Mr Francis Egadu, a former student of Teso College and now the Katakwi District Education Officer (DEO), says strikes have changed face. “Formally they were genuine. They were centred on agitation against poor teaching and administration, not food or dances,” Egadu who holds an MA in education management says. He says that after analysing the nature of strikes that have taken place this year, there was nothing at all to warrant them. “Take an example of St. Elizabeth, Kidetok Girls’ SS students who went on strike because their letters had been opened by the headteacher. What was so secret about the letters, after all, to call for a strike,” Egadu wonders. He says the different backgrounds from which the students are brought up in ought to be looked into when analysing the strikes. “These students come from poor and rich backgrounds. The rich ones tend to agitate for expensive things and eventually influence the poor ones in demanding for things the school is not able to provide,” Egadu observes. The Ministry of Education, however, is now trying to salvage the situation through the Education Standards Agency (ESA). Officials from the ministry are visiting schools that went on strike to establish causes of the strikes and how to avert them in future.