By Sabir Musa

Arua

Refugee settlements in West Nile are grappling with low enrolment of learners in secondary education, an issue that is raising concerns from different stakeholders.

Imvepi Refugee Settlement in Terego District only has 2 secondary schools with an enrolment of 2,027 learners of which 1,437 are males while 590 are females, and Rhinocamp Refugee Settlement has 6 secondary schools with enrolment of 1,671 learners.

While speaking at West Nile Sub-Region Protect Education in Emergency Conference held in Arua City, the Refugee Response Director at World Vision, Paul Mwichiri revealed that, only 1 out of every 10 children in the settlements join secondary education. “That statistic brings a lot of pain, we really need to invest more in secondary education. We have invested significantly in primary education and it is time for us as a community to invest in secondary education to ensure that we can get more young people moving into secondary education so that they grow much more better” the Director emphasized.

A student of Rhinocamp High School, Joan Kisakye attributes dropout of learners to financial challenges. She said, many parents and learners cannot afford everything needed for learning, including school fees. “We have the financial hardship by learners whereby paying school fees in this emergencies, most of the learners tend to dropout because of the financial hardship” she reasons.


Students from refugee schools speaking to stakeholders on the challenges faced
 
A consortium of organizations led by World Vision in collaboration with Windle International Uganda, Rural Initiative for Community Empowerment West Nile (RICE – WN) and Community Empowerment for Rural Development (CEFORD) are currently implementing European Union funded program (Equitable Access to Quality and Transformational Education for refugee and host communities in West Nile) to address challenges of education.

Refugee Desk Officer in Office of the Prime Minister, Solomon Osakan cites inadequate funding a challenge in addressing education challenges within settlements. “It is true we are grappling with reduction of funding in the settlements.
My appeal is to the donors to support partners in education to ensure that we continue proving support children in refugee settlements and hosting areas, of cause repatriation is feasible as of now and so refugee children will be here and need skills when they will be going back home to contribute towards development of the country” he said.

However, State Minister for Primary Education, Joyce Moriku Kaducu challenged all stakeholders to play their part in addressing the problem and improving education quality. “Government of Uganda through Ministry of Education is doing its best, but the stakeholders equally have got a lot of roles to play. Education is a shared responsibility, we all have our roles to play” the Ministry echoed.

Uganda is a home to 1,543,498 refugees with about 700,000 settled in West Nile districts as of August, 2023 according to United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

COVER PHOTO: State Minister of Education, Joyce Moriku Kaducu posing in a group photo with stakeholder after the education conference By Sabir Musa