Teachers who miss class shall face punitive action as the the Ministry of Education sets in motion plans to implement a presidential directive to tackle the problem of teacher absenteeism.
Addressing journalists at the Media Centre in Kampala on Monday. Education Minister Janet Museveni said the President gave guidelines at the beginning of the term sighting the problem of absenteeism by teachers and requested that the issue be tackled immediately.
“He said government spends over Shs68 billion on UPE 7[Universal Primary Education] and over Shs129 billion on USE but the children of the poor are not taught yet the teachers are paid more than those in private schools who teach more,” Ms Museveni said adding that this problem is due to poor supervision.
She further quoted President Museveni as having said Uganda should have one primary school per Parish, one government secondary school per sub-county and one government technical school per county by 2021.
Ms Museveni was giving an update on the achievements of her ministry as party of celebrations to mark the NRM party Manifesto week.
The First Lady said her ministry, in the 2017/18 Financial Year undertook provisional infrastructure, enhanced inspection of schools, skills development and support to physical education and sports.
“The implementation of the manifesto undertakings are guided by the vision of education and sports sector i.e “quality education and sports for all,” she said, adding: “The mission is to provide for support, guide, co-ordinate, regulate and promote delivery of quality education and sport to all individual Ugandans n individual and national level.
She further stated that the ministry had trained teachers, constructed class rooms as teachers’ houses and provided instructional materials and also improved on the monitoring and supervision.
“Under the primary sector we have revised primary teacher education curriculum, teacher trainees continue to receive compulsory training in the first year, specializing in either early childhood development or upper primary education,” the minister said.
She also sighted that the construction of the high altitude performance center in Kapchorwa is still under construction and efforts to identify row talent on the regional and national levels have been beefed up.
The first lady also talked about the challenges faced during implementation of the targets by the ministry, sighting that many people have a misconception that since UPE is a Government project, only them have to implement it.
In Secondary school, the minister sighted the increasing number sub counties has been a problem as more schools are required each passing month.
In the BITVET, there is negative social perception and stigma on both training and education as people think that schools are not necessary in the country.
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In her words
“We have a project that undertakes face to face training of 1000 care givers for the Pre-Primary on top of completing 54 selected primary schools = 356 class rooms including 53 Administration blocks, 108 VIP latrines for boys and girls, 62 stance VIP latrines for teachers, nine teachers’ houses, 63 water harvesting tanks have also been built.
“We have also procured a total of over 318,000 copies of integrated science and SST books and over 30,000 teacher guides.
“We have also been doing the monitoring and we have done a total of 230 schools in 19 districts.
“We have assessed P.2 competent under the monitoring and learning program in 60 districts.
“For the secondary education, we had targets of construction of fit secondary schools, Introduction of continuous assessment examination system and promote e-learning and computer literacy.
“A total of 12 secondary schools are under construction in the country and also a lower secondary curriculum reviewed to under 20 subjects with learners expected to select 8-9 subjects.
“There has also been continuous assessment building with in the curriculum.
“80 schools where provided with digital science and mathematical software in collaboration with UCC.
“We supported three national teams to participate in three international tournaments including the She Cranes, Cranes and the 21st Commonwealth Games.
