By Judith Atizoyo

Head teachers of some primary schools in Ayivu West division in Arua city have decried the poor state of infrastructure in their schools which they say contributes to poor performance. These concerns were raised during an evaluation of performance for pupils who sat for the 2020 primary leaving Examinations in Ayivu West.  

The head teacher of Aripezu primary school Milly Maturu says "We have inadequate classrooms for learning some of these children are learning under terrible conditions which do not allow them to concentrate in learning aspects  which therefore calls for more classrooms to  be availed in these schools so as to space the learners. In most of these schools particularly where I come from P1, P2 are still sitting on the floor yet this is the basic class where handwriting is identified and improved and what do we expect during the PLE writing examinations  the learner will fail to write well because the hands have not been well developed’’, she said.

In the 2020 PLE Ayivuni Sub county had no pupil in division one, Adumi had two pupils in division One and Pajulu had 93 in division one.

The head teacher Abiria primary school Grace Driciru explains that the situation is worse at her school: “We have poor conditions of classrooms particularly my classrooms have poor status, smearing is done from when schools begin until schools close, on infrastructure I have got poor health conditions especially I don’t have latrines in my school if schools were to open today I want to tell you that on the side of boys they will even close the school’’.

The inspector of schools Arua city Zilly Buza who represented the principal education officer Arua city noted that as education department they are limited by resources: "We have seen schools most specifically these schools in Ayivu they have a lot of areas that need support we have schools that have their roofs blown off by wind, we have schools the floor is as if it is a football pitch, we have schools that do not have adequate sitting facilities, there even schools without latrines as being mentioned but the resource envelope is very meagre all these issues the teachers raised are very touching issues. In infant classes we have children ranging from three hundred to four hundred in P1 or P2 but there may be two or three class rooms which are not enough we need help along that area".

The Member of Parliament Ayivu West constituency in Arua city John Lematia pledged to forward the concerns to the education committee at parliament: "We are still going to forward them to the ministry. These things are not always on the floor of parliament but they are in committee sectors, there are committees which sit for education, they look into issues of education there, also committees which look at issues of infrastructure so in these different committess  we shall see how we can spread some of these issues".

Out of 26 schools in Ayivu west 17 schools did not have any pupil in division one.


COVER PHOTO: A section of teachers during an evaluation of the 2020 PLE results in Ayivu West division. Photo by Judith Atizoyo.