Recently the government threatened to close over 1,000 private schools which do not meet the stipulated minimum operating requirements. Today, over 100 parents who claim to have children in some of these private schools in Wakiso district stormed the Kasangati residence of the State Minister for Primary Education Rosemary Sseninde with a petition against the closure of the schools. “Many children are going to suffer because of this, why? We have a number of schools that are unregistered but they been operating for days and parents have been taking their kids there not because they wanted it but because their prices are a bit low.”
Despite the pleas from the petitioning parents, the Minister said that the government will still go ahead with the closure of the schools if they did not meet the requirements set. “To make it categorically clear first of all, that we are not going to allow any school to open on the 5th February when they don’t have a license or when they don’t have the minimum standards or don’t meet the minimum standards.” Said, Rosemary Sseninde – State Minister for Primary Education. Some school owners who were part of the petitioners claimed that their schools had met all the requirements but they were being denied licenses by the officials at both the district and Ministry levels. “After reaching the schools, some of them need a coin to approve their papers. You find that at the end of the day if you don’t give in something your papers will be just be placed a dustbin. We have seen it; there is a school I have in my parish, papers reached their but they were not worked on.” “There are some files that had had some gaps, that certain things they have not fulfilled and they have been informed and they have been requested to fill their files, many of them have not come back. So that is where the problem is.”
This complaint comes at a time when the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Alex Kakooza said there was a backlog of license applications at the Ministry. “Primary, basic education; we have had some slippages because we gave particular days on which people should come and because of that and the volume, there has been a backlog.” Said, Alex Kakooza – Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education. Some of these requirements that the government wants these private schools to have before issuing a license to them are having qualified teachers, structural plans, at least 5 acres of land, property sanitation, and proper sheltered classrooms among others.
