The pillar of Lubya‘s learning
Aug 24, 2010
When the Government school at Lubya Island closed, parents asked Mubeezi to teach their children. <b>Joseph Ssemutooke</b> visited the Lubya Island and writes:<br>Lubya Island is a four-hour ride (about 50km) off Masese Landing Site on Lake Victoria.
When the Government school at Lubya Island closed, parents asked Mubeezi to teach their children. Joseph Ssemutooke visited the Lubya Island and writes:
Lubya Island is a four-hour ride (about 50km) off Masese Landing Site on Lake Victoria.
The island has a population of about 4,000 people, 250 of which are children who ought to be attending primary school.
However, education is almost out of reach for these children, and most adults are illiterate. Lubya Island only has only two schools which go up to Primary Three. Moreover, the two schools teach only 60 pupils, with one school teaching 20 and the other teaching 40 pupils.
Faith Mubeezi is the woman at the forefront of the struggle to educate Lubya. Mubeezi is the proprietor and headteacher of Faith Modern School, which has 40 pupils. Her effort is largely responsible for the minuscule education on the island.
“Most likely, there would be no school on this island if Mubeezi had not started one,†says Ibrahim Sebere, the information officer of Lubya Island.
“A Government school was
established by the district authorities three years ago, but it collapsed after two terms. It was Mubeezi who came to our rescue by starting her own school.â€
Mubeezi had been one of the three teachers at the failed government school. When the island was left with no school, some parents approached her and asked her to teach their children privately.
She started teaching six children at home — in her one-room wooden structure. The room is partitioned into a bedroom and a living room by just a curtain.
As more parents brought children to her to teach, the home was no longer enough to house a class. She temporarily used the local Church of Uganda building (also a small wooden structure) as a classroom.
When the numbers increased, the church building could not accommodate them all, so she had to move out and start a school. She turned a wooden structure she had constructed for a hall into her school’s first two classrooms. This gave Lubya Island a school that has its own premises.
“Even the second private school we have started after Mubeezi’s initiative worked out. It is Mubeezi who set the candle alight,’ says Betty Apio, a resident.
The tough challenges
The major challenge is the parents’ failure to pay school fees. Mubeezi charges each student between sh10,000 and 15,000 a term, depending on the class level, but still the parents fail to pay the fees.
“It is not that the parents cannot afford that money,†she says. “They simply don’t want to pay for education because they don’t consider it important. One would rather take alcohol of sh50,000 a night than pay sh1,5000 school fees for their child for a term,†Mubeezi expalins.
Most parents also do not provide children with the necessary scholastic materials like books and school uniforms. Most pupils lack books, pencils, uniforms and shoes.
Other challenges include lack of enough desks for the pupils and having lessons in dilapidated temporary wooden structures.
“My aim is to give these children basic education. When their parents do not pay school fees, I still teach them in the manner someone would offer you a gift you need. I just do it out of the desire to help them. I cannot send them away because I can’t imagine what they will become without education.â€
At the end of the day she does not gain from her teaching, but instead uses her own money to offer her pupils education.
Recently she got three teachers to help her at the school, but because only about six students have paid school fees this term, she had to get money from her private fishing business to pay the teachers.
Mubeezi has adopted some of her pupils who need assistance beyond school issues. So far, she has adopted two orphans whom she felt needed her assistance. One is an 11-year-old girl in P.3. The girl was staying with a negligent grandmother.
Teaching the entire Island
Mubeezi not only teaches the 40 pupils enrolled at her school, but also offers basic education to adult women of Lubya. She educates the women on personal hygiene and sanitation, home economics and family planning.
In fact, her teaching on the island started with casual lessons to adults. Some of the women approached her seeking to be taught how to read and write, and she accepted. Then when the Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) programme run by the education ministry arrived on the island, Mubeezi taught almost the entire population how to read and write.
Lubya Island is a four-hour ride (about 50km) off Masese Landing Site on Lake Victoria.
The island has a population of about 4,000 people, 250 of which are children who ought to be attending primary school.
However, education is almost out of reach for these children, and most adults are illiterate. Lubya Island only has only two schools which go up to Primary Three. Moreover, the two schools teach only 60 pupils, with one school teaching 20 and the other teaching 40 pupils.
Faith Mubeezi is the woman at the forefront of the struggle to educate Lubya. Mubeezi is the proprietor and headteacher of Faith Modern School, which has 40 pupils. Her effort is largely responsible for the minuscule education on the island.
“Most likely, there would be no school on this island if Mubeezi had not started one,†says Ibrahim Sebere, the information officer of Lubya Island.
“A Government school was
established by the district authorities three years ago, but it collapsed after two terms. It was Mubeezi who came to our rescue by starting her own school.â€
Mubeezi had been one of the three teachers at the failed government school. When the island was left with no school, some parents approached her and asked her to teach their children privately.
She started teaching six children at home — in her one-room wooden structure. The room is partitioned into a bedroom and a living room by just a curtain.
As more parents brought children to her to teach, the home was no longer enough to house a class. She temporarily used the local Church of Uganda building (also a small wooden structure) as a classroom.
When the numbers increased, the church building could not accommodate them all, so she had to move out and start a school. She turned a wooden structure she had constructed for a hall into her school’s first two classrooms. This gave Lubya Island a school that has its own premises.
“Even the second private school we have started after Mubeezi’s initiative worked out. It is Mubeezi who set the candle alight,’ says Betty Apio, a resident.
The tough challenges
The major challenge is the parents’ failure to pay school fees. Mubeezi charges each student between sh10,000 and 15,000 a term, depending on the class level, but still the parents fail to pay the fees.
“It is not that the parents cannot afford that money,†she says. “They simply don’t want to pay for education because they don’t consider it important. One would rather take alcohol of sh50,000 a night than pay sh1,5000 school fees for their child for a term,†Mubeezi expalins.
Most parents also do not provide children with the necessary scholastic materials like books and school uniforms. Most pupils lack books, pencils, uniforms and shoes.
Other challenges include lack of enough desks for the pupils and having lessons in dilapidated temporary wooden structures.
“My aim is to give these children basic education. When their parents do not pay school fees, I still teach them in the manner someone would offer you a gift you need. I just do it out of the desire to help them. I cannot send them away because I can’t imagine what they will become without education.â€
At the end of the day she does not gain from her teaching, but instead uses her own money to offer her pupils education.
Recently she got three teachers to help her at the school, but because only about six students have paid school fees this term, she had to get money from her private fishing business to pay the teachers.
Mubeezi has adopted some of her pupils who need assistance beyond school issues. So far, she has adopted two orphans whom she felt needed her assistance. One is an 11-year-old girl in P.3. The girl was staying with a negligent grandmother.
Teaching the entire Island
Mubeezi not only teaches the 40 pupils enrolled at her school, but also offers basic education to adult women of Lubya. She educates the women on personal hygiene and sanitation, home economics and family planning.
In fact, her teaching on the island started with casual lessons to adults. Some of the women approached her seeking to be taught how to read and write, and she accepted. Then when the Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) programme run by the education ministry arrived on the island, Mubeezi taught almost the entire population how to read and write.