By Kaleb Yiiki

Arua

A friendly and open communication between teachers and students through family initiative has kept Arua Secondary School strike free since its establishment in 1991.

Located in the heart of Arua city, Arua S.S currently has an enrollment   of 1200 students who are all day scholars. The school   is also a government   aided supported by universal secondary schools education program.

Maliko Juliet is a senior three student. She has been a classroom counselor from form one and now is the Assistant Head Girl. She intimates to Radio Pacis how she has been able to be bridge the gap between teachers and students saying, in order to solve some issues in the Class, she talks to some of the stubborn students and befriends them to understand the secret of their stubbornness and this gives her better clues of how to reveal their offences to teachers. “You’ll realize their offences and find a better way to tell these mistakes to the teachers who handles them in a soft way.” she revealed.
 
Wahid Abujere  is  a   Senior   five   student,  who  dreams   to   be  a civil   engineer    and  he   gives  us  his   experience   of the school environment in  the  last four  years. He says that the teachings instilled in the school made him to join Arua SS. He reveals that the teachers are so cooperative with the students in that when the students don’t understand some concepts and approach the concerned teachers they give them their time to explain and make them understand what the students have failed to pick. “They have been feeding us so well and the kind of punishment they give us is to turn us away from the wrong direction, we might have been taking.” he praised.

 
L-R: Head Prefect Abdurashid Guma, Assistant Head girl Maliko Julliet, and Out gone UNSA President Abdulhamid Abass Murjan
 
Abdulhamid Abass Murjan, is the outgone Chairman for the Ugandan National Students association (UNSA) in the school. He also shares how he has been able to maintain harmony among the students revealing, he understood the fact that as a student leader, the more he is perceived as foreign to students, the more hostility is created between him and the students and this breeds misunderstanding and resentment. Abass says he made sure, he always endeavored to work in the favor of students by considering all their grievances.

He discloses that he lowered himself down to the level of the students and even if it meant to become so common to the students by sharing food on the same plate, he did that. “You should come down and level yourself with the students.” He disclosed.  

Abdurashid Guma is the newly sworn in head prefect of Arua Secondary School and tells us how he intends to keep this virgin legacy intact through avoidance of apportioning blames but to take responsibility. “We are going to in fact use satires to try to portray some negative images, while everyone laughs at them, the message is taken in such a positive away in order to avoid chaos on both sides of students and teachers respectively.” He promises.

 
Arua S.S DOS Eyotre Samuel speaking to Radio Pacis

Eyotre   Samuel    the   Director of Studies (DOS) Arua   SS outlines reasons that have kept the school free   of strike. He reveals that the administration implored the support of Boda Boda cyclists who could arrest any loitering student around the school premises who don’t want to attend lessons and bring such students to the school administration and the administration will reward such Boda Boda men by paying them some money. This made the issue of loitering students to vanish.

They also do guide and counsel students on weekly basis. “We introduced the school family initiative where students are assigned to a teacher who acts as a parent to the Students. This teacher ensures that in a term, he/she talks to all the students under his or her care twice or three times a term. When this was introduced, all the students actually became friendly and these greatly reduced any chance of strike occurrences since the students always feel they have someone who has a listening ear for their issues.” he revealed.

Students   in  West Nile  schools   have  been  going  on  strikes  as   they  accuse  the    school  administration  of  unfair  school  policies,  lack  of  food , poor   student-teacher   relationship,    health    safety  concerns   among  others. But drugs   and substance   abuse among   students   have   been   cited as the   main factor   of   unruly   behavior   among   students.

COVER PHOTO: Students relaxing during break time at Arua S.S By Kaleb Yiiki