Districts with highest number of unqualified schools named

Almost all schools in Kalaki district were not allowed to reopen following the inspection by the education ministry.

According to preliminary findings from the inspection, only two primary schools out of 47 were granted certificates of compliance in the district.

The 45 primary schools which were not issued with certificates of compliance include 23 that totally failed to qualify and 22 others that will be subjected to a second inspection this week.

According to the education ministry scorecard, which was used in the school inspection, schools that qualified must have scored 60% and above on requirements. The pending ones scored between 50% and 59%, and these were advised to put some things right.

Those that completely failed scored 49% and below and were automatically ordered to hand over or transfer candidates to the nearby schools.

Amuria district is another district where almost all schools failed on the inspection with just four primary schools out 94 getting certificates of compliance.

The statistics indicate that in Amuria 80 primary schools failed to qualify whereas 10 are pending.

In addition, seven secondary schools out of 14 in the district were given certificates of compliance.

These two were followed by Katakwi district, which also registered more schools that failed to qualify than the approved ones.

The preliminary findings obtained by New Vision indicate that Katakwi had just 14 primary schools which were issued certificates.

The district also registered 61 primary schools, including those that did not qualify (22) and pending (39), which were not issued with certificates.

In addition, Kaberamaido had a total of 31 primary schools without certificates, whereas just 25 were granted permission to reopen.

Agago district, on the other hand, had 26 primary schools without certificates while 21 were given the green light to reopen.

The other worst-performing districts include Kiryandongo, Lamwo and Yumbe districts, with 42, 29 and 38 schools respectively which did not reopen.

The trio also had more schools failing to qualify than those granted certificates of compliance.

Best performing

In the inspection, schools in the Karamoja sub-region were the best performing.

All the districts of Karamoja, save for Napak, had both their primary and secondary schools granted certificates of compliance.

These include Moroto, Kotido, Kaabong, Karenga, Nabilatuk, Amudat and Nakapiripirit.

Napak had just two primary schools out of 23 that did not qualify.

The other performing districts include Jinja, Masaka, Terego and Fort Portal city.

Revisiting schools

In an interview with New Vision, Dr Kedrace Turyagenda, the director of education standards at the ministry, confirmed that schools dubbed pending, will know their fate this week.

"These schools are categorised as pending because they have just a few things to fix before they can reopen. We gave them a week after we visited their premises to fix the gaps," she said.

Benson Kule Baritazale, the commissioner for secondary education standards, who co-ordinated the school inspection, said the district local governments will be in charge of revisiting schools that are pending.

"We have tasked the different local governments and the district inspectors of schools with inspecting such schools. These will also be in charge of issuing the certificates to those that will have qualified," he said.

Once this is concluded, a final comprehensive report on school inspection will be sent to the ministry for further guidance.

Ministry speaks out on inspection

The education ministry permanent secretary, Alex Kakooza, in a statement issued Monday, revealed that, "More than 80% of the schools in the 148 local governments which have so far submitted inspection results have qualified to open, while less than 1% do not meet the requirements to re-open."

Kakooza has also ordered that local governments publicise the schools which have been cleared, to help parents know where to take their children to complete their candidate classes.

He said a school needs to have at least 60% of the score when it comes to the set standard operating procedures (SOPs) to be cleared to open.

"Schools that will have scored 50%- 59% can be allowed to put in place what is required within one week. We were very strict, to ensure that our children are safe. Even if the school had scored 60% and above and has not scored a full scale of two in each of the indicators under handwashing hygiene and social distancing, it will not be permitted to open," Kakooza explained.

Turyagyenda, also said the inspectors were impressed to find that 100% of the schools in Karamoja meet the set SOPs.

When asked to explain the reason for the 100% performance, she said, "These schools were supported by non-governmental organisations to meet the set SOPs, and we really commend them for the support they have given the country."