Primary school in Jinja closed over poor hygiene

Nov 12, 2009

AUTHORITIES in Jinja municipality have closed St. Florence Nursery and Primary School for failure to feed pupils in the boarding section. They also said the pupils were being accommodated in appaling conditions.

By Charles Kakamwa

AUTHORITIES in Jinja municipality have closed St. Florence Nursery and Primary School for failure to feed pupils in the boarding section. They also said the pupils were being accommodated in appaling conditions.

Florence Wepukhulu, the school director, was arrested. The municipal inspector of schools, Stephen Katankula, said the school also lacked basic facilities and was not licensed.

“I warned the director to get the necessities, but she has failed,” Katankula said on Monday. The order comes after an inspection of the school by the Police and officials of the African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN), following reports of abuse.

Jimmy Obbo, the Jinja programme manager, said three pupils were found begging for money on Monday morning, saying they had not had supper the previous night.

The children, aged between nine and 11 years, were dressed in dirty clothes, they had a skin rash, jiggers and one looked anaemic. “On most days, we miss meals and resort to begging from Masese or eat left-overs from restaurants,” one of the children, who comes from Buswale in Bugiri district, said.

When the team visited the school located in Masese III, a slum in Walukuba Division, they noted that the sanitation was appaling. The school has a makeshift latrine, which is shared by pupils and teachers.

There were faeces in the compound, while porridge was being prepared under a tree shed. The team noted that the school had one wooden structure that houses the classrooms, staff room and head teacher’s office.

They added that 32 of the 180 pupils, whom the director said were in the boarding section, were accommodated in a dirty house in Kilombe zone, about a kilometre away from the school. “The children have suffered for so long, but when we try to intervene she (Wepukhulu) intimidates us because she works in the resident district commissioner’s office,” Swaibu Bogere the Kilombe zone L.C 1 chairman, said.

“They (children) cross the railway line to go for supper at the school at 7:00pm, but most times they find nothing. The matron once sent away a young girl at night and I picked her at 10:00pm from the bush,” he added.

Wepukhulu said: “The school is not the problem but the parents. We made an agreement whereby they would feed their children and provide other necessities, but they did not honour it.”

On the children who had a skin rash, she said: “They are now in a better situation. They were badly off when they reported to school and I have treated them single handedly.” Gregory Okwi, the acting district CID chief, said Wepukhulu would be charged with unlawful confinement.

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