The declining academic standards in Busia district were attributed to the high rate of children and teacher absenteeism at the Primary school level. UWEZO Coordinator Herbert Kulafa spoke at the release of the TUWEWEZA Annual Report for 2015 at the District Busia Council Hall. “On average only 27% of the children are able to competently or to effectively do a P.2 task that is in basic literacy and basic numeracy of division, subtraction, and addition.” Said, Herbert Kulafa – Coordinator, UWEZO. In terms of literacy and numeracy, Busia was ranked 3rd out of the 112 districts assessed. The Report also showed that many children had dropped out of schools and were doing gold mining in the areas of Sikuda, Buteba and Busitema. While in Busime and Majanji others had taken to fishing with another bigger number involved in smuggling or pushing people living with disabilities across the border into Kenya as they felly goods.

“CAO has the discretion either to submit to the District Service Commission or deduct the salary and give what was worked for or even interdict. All those options are there.” Said, Anthony Egesa – Chief Administrative Officer, Busia. “Only that 19% of the teachers in Busia during the assessment we not found at school and 36% of the pupils were not at school which also affects the teaching and learning.” Retired teacher Oguti Bichachi said the number of pupils in the schools were much bigger compared to the number of teachers a situation which did not help the academic performance.

Meanwhile, Laban Wandera the Headmaster thought it was the time the government revised a policy of taking teachers to a training institution. “The government should target the senior six leavers for the training and they should be well paid.” “In that sector of primary, they are not properly handled, they are not educated because the regulations don’t work; one teacher handling over a hundred people.” The UWEZO Report recommended that the government should recruit more teachers to reduce the high pupil to teacher ratio.