By Sabir Musa 

Only twenty percent of pupils in Yumbe District complete their Primary Education. The district education department reports that out of 28,302 learners who joined primary one class about seven years ago, only 6,634 were able to sit for 2022 Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), showing over 80% dropout rate.
2,593 of the PLE candidates were girls while 4,041 were boys.

Rasul Luriga, Yumbe District Education Officer, attributes the low enrolment, retention and completion rate to harsh learning environment and poor mindset of some parents towards education. “Our environment is not conducive for teaching and learning; it is very harsh, it is not motivating, it is very tempting, any child who goes through Yumbe District must be a hard person who is really interested otherwise, there are a lot of chances for this pupil to drop out of school” Luriga painfully revealed.    

Education stakeholders in the district recently organized Aringa Education Conference to identify problems facing education sector and generate possible solutions. The program organized under the theme “Improving Education Standard” attracted different professionals.
Joel Aita, Muni University Council Chairperson, blames the poor education standard and low completion rate on negative mindset of some parents.
“What has killed us in West Nile is that we still believe in education as a free service. As long as we keep in believing that way, I can assure you that our education level will still continue going down” Aita Said.   

The district leaders pledge to introduce new strategies and use recommendations from the recently organized education conference to improve on performance and completion rate of leaners.