By Godwin Abedican

Arua

Established by the Alur community in 1956, occasioned by the drowning of a pupil when crossing river Enyau while trekking to Ediofe where the learners used to go in search of schools a distance of around 5 kilometers, Ragem primary school was established to cater for the lower classes as the other classes continued with their long trek until primary seven. Started under a tree, the school since then grew until it was taken over by the government in the early 1960s in the then Arua district. Since the operationalization of Arua city at the beginning of the financial year 2020, Ragem primary school found itself as one of the schools in Arua city along Arua Kampala Highway. Located in onzivu ward it is the only UPE School serving a population of around twenty thousand and it continues to grapple with little government support, facilitation and attention towards the school as the number of learners continues to surge yearly which has continued to affect the quality of learning and subsequently the results of the school including national examinations.
 
The school stake holders have continued to complain over little government attention. According to Allen Gilbert one of the teachers at the school, factors such as classroom shortage, shortage of accommodation, lack of staff houses for teachers which makes them operate from home with only 5 out of 22 accommodated, delay of UPE funds, absenteeism by learners and teachers, lack of power (electricity, nonresponse to the recent transfers by the transferred teachers and lack of a substantive deputy head teacher especially at the time when the head teacher is bedridden following a recent accident.
 
Hon. Ongiera Juliet, The female councilor representing Onzivu ward to Ayivu division and a member of the school management committee notes that there was a previous allocation of projects at the school under Development Response to Displacement Impact Projects (DRDIP), but no leader has come to explain where the monies have gone. “There is something happening in this city of Arua, they like diverting projects because the issue of DRDIP started since with everything approved but nothing has taken place and yet the district continues to implement projects under DRDIP in the city,” she explained angrily to the area member of parliament Hon. Geoffrey Feta. “This school deserves to get the best. Look at the fence around, the security of the children, it needed to be a demo school. The community have done their best, look at the staff houses around, the primary 1 and 4 blocks they are out of the PTA money. For how long will the community keep on doing and yet the government is not coming in to help them and yet they are doing a lot to the government and yet they are developing it somewhere. Juliet added.

Raymond Ombere Obiayi the City Education officer Arua, admits the challenges at the school saying his office is working round to ensure there is a short term solution for these before other long term plans can be embarked on. “A number of our schools face such problems and the issue of children finding no comfort while studying is a big driver to high dropout rates, actually we are working as Arua city trying to appeal to the Government to consider Arua city as a special case as far as funding our infrastructure is concerned” he said. According to him, last year he made a visit at Ragem with the commissioner for basic education who promised to help the school with tents which were being issued to those school where there enrolment increased and classrooms were not enough, but unfortunately when the tents were being issued they were delivered to Ragem technical institute.
 
Hon. Feta Geoffrey, the member of parliament for Ayivu Division East  in whose constituency the school lies justifies such conditions in government schools as the reasons as to why there is constant poor performance in government schools. “Performance is a factor of many stakes. The environment in which a learner is learning is very key. The learning environment is not conducive, the teacher has no space to turn round and the children cannot pay attention to the teachers. That’s why a private school that has constructed classrooms and has put 40 pupils per class performs better because the concentration level in that environment is not equivalent to that in this environment when we have close to one hundred ninety pupils in one classroom,” Feta says.

The MP looks at primary two pupils attending lessons thrugh the window
 
The school currently has 22 teachers with an enrolment of one thousand four hundred thirty four (1,434) pupils accommodated in 7 class rooms with primary two alone having a total of 282 pupils piling in one classroom. Out of 126 primary seven candidates who sat for the 2022 PLE examinations at the school last year,  none obtained division one with 35 in division 2, 43 in Division 3, 17 in division 4, 26 in division U and 5 missed the exams.

COVER PHOTO: Two teachers struggling to draw attention of lersners in the primary two class By Godwin Abedican