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Jinja, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A mob comprising parents of pupils at Kamiigo Primary School, in Buyengo town council of Jinja district have today stormed the head teacher’s office with the intention to lynch him over poor results from last year’s Primary Leaving Examinations -PLE.
The parents who had been invited for the beginning of year meeting with the teachers today, accused the school head, Godfrey Namuyoga of exhibiting poor performance for the past five years, which has since led to the poor quality of learners, with most of the school’s pupils failing to qualify for universal secondary education-USE.
The parents came along with empty jerrycans which they drummed, demanding the forcefully eviction of Namuyoga from their school over failure to exhibit acceptable academic performance.
Led by the chairperson of parents and teachers association Charles Kasayi, they decided to first lock up Namuyoga in his office.
Kasayi charged that of the 64 pupils registered for last year’s PLE however no first grade was registered, with over 14 of them failing completely.
“We haven’t registered any first grades ever since Namuyoga became our headteacher and last year’s results were worse with only eight second graders, 30 third graders, 12 fourth graders and 14 of them failing completely, which has overly undermined the quality of education in our school,” he said.
Another parent, Diana Aliyinza claimed that pupils are subjected to hard labor like tilling school gardens for a whole day, which deprives them of quality learning time in the school.
She said that several parents have often complained about subjecting pupils to child labor but Namuyoga that is reluctant to address this complaint.
Sam Buyinza, the area L.C.1 chairperson also says that the pupils of Kamiigo Primary School are often found collecting water from boreholes during study hours, yet the school administrators have been reluctant to address these concerns.
Buyinza charges that Namuyoga has exhibited poor administrative skills, which have cost learners who cannot even perform well in their routine classwork and that there is need for fundamental changes to improve on the education standards of the area.
As the parents became more charged, they started pelting Namuyoga’s office with stones, baying for his blood over failure to ensure acceptable education outcomes for their learners.
This dangerous situation prompted police to intervene by firing live ammunition in the air as a means of calming the situation and restoring order sanity at the school.
They later whisked Namuyoga away to Kakira Central Police Station for safe custody. Namuyoga for his part however, says that the chaotic scene was masterminded by some teachers who are using parents for their selfish agendas of forcefully causing his transfer from the school.
Meanwhile, the Kiira regional police spokesperson, James Mubi says that, 15 police personnel have been dispatched to tighten up security at the school as a means of deterring similar occurances.
With 15 personnel now stationed in this particular school, Mubi further says that police is closely coordinating further engagements with the Jinja district local government officials to collectively draft long lasting solutions for resolving standoffs in schools in the region.
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