ICT CENTRE COULD BE THE BOOST WARR GIRLS SCHOOL NEEDS

Dec 15, 2009

IT was the pride of W est Nile. It was every girl’s wish to pursue her secondary education in this dream school. But today, Warr Girls’ school in Nebbi district is a shadow of its past glory.

BY AYIGA ONDOGA

IT was the pride of W est Nile. It was every girl’s wish to pursue her secondary education in this dream school. But today, Warr Girls’ school in Nebbi district is a shadow of its past glory.

Dilapidated accommodation and learning infrastructure has resulted into teachers’ flight. With good teachers gone, academic performance has suffered. As a result, student enrollment has since plummeted from 600 a decade ago to a mere 200 today — a third of the school’s capacity, according to the head teacher, Bromel Ovoya Opar.

Taking Nebbi Woman MP, Catherine Mavenjina, around the school recently, Opar said the school needs total up-grading of almost all the infrastructure, starting from classrooms, teachers houses, dormitories, water systems, laboratories, the library, power especially the solar system and transport for both staff and students.

Mavenjina, who was commissioning a computer laboratory housed in a dilapidated structure with weak doors and windows, was accompanied by the chairperson board of governors and Nebbi diocese bishop, Martin Luluga and the resident district commissioner Betty Adima and other community members.

Grace Kwicwinyi, an old girl and a member of Nebbi Community, said: “Warr Girls in the old day was the best girls school in West Nile and greater north academically. But these days, the students’ performance is very poor due to the state of the infrastructure and science laboratories that lack equipment and qualified teachers.”

She called upon the Government to include the school on the list of the schools which are going to be reconstructed in the country in order to attract many students who leave their home district, Nebbi for schools elsewhere.

A number of prominent figures in Nebbi have gone through Warr Girls. Among them former Nebbi woman MP Betty Pacutho, Grace Thorac, formerly of Uganda Revenue Authority and Felly Awachango, former coordinator of Kilika Charitable Trust. Retired bishop of Arua diocese, Frederick Drandua, was a pioneer student when the school was still a seminary.

School origin
The school was established in 1956 as Warr Junior School. However, when the Government phased off junior secondary schools in 1967, it was taken over by the missionaries and turned into a seminary and renamed Warr Seminary.

In 1969, the seminary was moved to St. Peters and Paul seminary, Pokea in Arua district

The Verona Sisters then took over the premises to establish Warr Girls, the first ever private girls’ school in Nebbi. The pioneer Senior Four students sat their East African examinations in 1970. The school became government aided in 1976. It flourished through the years until around 1989 when it started on a steady decline.

The school buildings have stayed for years without rehabilitation. A thick coat of dust on the walls has replaced the paint. The roofing sheets have rusted. Classroom blocks and teachers houses either have missing doors and window shutters or the glasses are broken.

“What you people are seeing is not good for our children to study in this era of modernisation of education especially with the Government introduction of universal primary and secondary education,” Opar stated.

“I see no reason why Warr Girls School is not at this particular time, considered for upgrading by the Government and other stakeholders, when government has a renovation programme for schools in place.

“We really need an overhaul of the school because the lack of proper infrastructure is the bottleneck of the poor performance of the students. If the population is currently small, let us create a better environment so that many students apply to come to the school,” he observed.

Opar estimates that about sh2b is needed to give the school a facelift that would possibly enable it attract more students and qualified staff.

Due to poor accommodation and low turn up, Opar says attracting and retaining good teachers is a nightmare.

“Before the school was getting teachers locally,” Opar said. “But paying their salary has been a big challenge resulting into mass exodus to other better paying schools in other districts.”

Opar said because of the low income of parents, they cannot be charged high fees to afford adequate allowances for the teachers. He said Universal Secondary Education students (USE) pay sh90,000 while non-USE students are charged sh160,000.

Despite the meagre pay, Opar commended the staff on the ground as trying their best. “Despite this conditions, the teachers are working very hard to see that their students do better in examinations,” he noted.

Ray of hope
Nebbi LC5 councillor, Mary Ogentho, said the district local government has approved sh60m for the construction of a new dormitory block at the school under the northern Uganda Peace and Recovery Development Programme.

“We want Warr Girls, the only girl’s school in Nebbi to develop under the new Zombo district,” Ogentho noted.

The establishment of an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Centre at the school under the Northern Uganda Peace and Recovery programme is expected to give the school another boost. Under the programme, 10 computers were installed by the Uganda Communication Commission with support from the Rural Communication Development Fund (RCDF).

Adima said: “Through ICT, we get information far and wide especially when the globe has become one village. Therefore, knowledge is power which will make you to survive in the global.”

She commended the Government for selecting Warr Girls as one of the schools to benefit under the ICT programme. Adima appealed to the parents and other stakeholders in the education sector to work towards making the school gain its former glory at the top school in West Nile.

“For the success in education, we do not need the teachers alone to promote and improve education standards of students but the parents and the surrounding communities as well,” Adima stated.

She said the Government considers girl-child education as the turning point in development especially under the transformation programme which needs both male and female.

Opar also said: “With the ICT programme in place, both students and teachers would do more research to add to their classroom lessons especially after putting the internet connection.” Could Warr Girls finally be on its way to glory or sinking deeper into oblivion?

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