The government has allocated over sh6bn for the construction of two Seed Secondary Schools in Buvuma district.
The Buvuma District Education Officer -DEO, Hussein Bugembe says the government is intending to address the biting problem of primary school dropout rates in Buvuma which is partly responsible for the abscence of secondary schools.
The DEO identifies the secondary boarding schools to be built as; Namatale Seed School which is to be constructed at Namatale landing site in Bwema sub-county and Lukale Seed School in Busamuzi sub-county.
DEO Bugembe says in Bwema sub-county, Namatale Seed School is going to be the first secondary school to be built, serving 12 different islands making the sub-county. He adds that it will also help the sub-counties in the far island sub-counties like; Lyabaana, Lwaje, Lubya and Bugaya which are also lacking secondary schools.
“The sub-county is made up of 12 different islands but it has never been with any formal secondary school. Parents have been starting them in this place but they could easily fail due to lack of management. The Ministry of Education recently blocked the advertisement process which was meant to get a constructor so that the construction work could start, just because of the second wave of COVID 19 that resulted into another lockdown.”
Bugembe says Bwema sub-county has got two government primary schools and eight that are private but children from those schools can hardly join secondary schools just because they lack a secondary school in their locality yet their parents have no ability to take them to boarding schools on the mainland in the districts of Buikwe, Jinja and Mukono.
“Bwema sub-county has more than 10,000 school going children who are scattered into different islands. Most of those children drop out of school due to a number of reasons, lack of schools inclusive.”
The Buvuma deputy Resident District Commissioner, Juma Kigongo says Namatale Seed School will be fully equipped with all the facilities including library, science and computer laboratories, among others.
“This boarding secondary school is going to have well-constructed buildings with piped water and solar power. It will cost over sh3bn and the money is already provided to the district.”
Meddie Sserwadda, a resident reveals that though many people blame the parents in the islands of neglecting their children, leaving them to go into fishing and marriage at a tender age, they also have nothing to do because their children who finish Primary Seven lacked a secondary school in the whole sub-county to join.
“For three to four years back we have been trying to build this school but keep failing. Therefore, parents who have money would take their children in boarding schools on the mainland or take them to their relatives still on the mainland where they would easily access secondary schools. Many children from families that could not afford that process automatically ended in Primary Seven.”
Made up of 52 islands, Buvuma district currently has got only two government secondary schools including Buvuma College School and Nairambi Seed School which was built in 2019.
-URN
