The suspension of school trips and educational tours following the July 16 tragic accident involving learners of King David Junior School in Ndejje has left many schools facing a difficult balance between keeping learners safe and providing them with practical learning experiences.
The accident, which claimed the lives of 20 learners and an adult as they returned from an educational visit to Sipi falls in Kapchorwa, prompted the government to suspend school excursions indefinitely as authorities reviewed safety measures surrounding school travel.
While the decision was welcomed as a necessary precaution to protect learners, some school administrators say the continued restriction is also affecting an important part of education.
Fahd Ssemukaaya, headteacher of Busiika Muslim SS, says learners have greatly benefited from educational tours in the past and that stopping them completely has created challenges for both teachers and students.
According to Ssemukaaya, school tours are not simply recreational activities. They give learners an opportunity to move beyond the classroom and see for themselves what they learn about in books.
Students can visit industries, historical sites, agricultural projects, environmental attractions and other places that help them connect classroom theory to real-life situations.
“Learners benefit a lot from these tours because they get to see and experience things that teachers may only explain in class,” Ssemukaaya argues.
The challenge, therefore, is how to ensure that learners continue benefiting from these experiences without exposing them to unnecessary danger.
The King David Junior School tragedy demonstrated the devastating consequences that can arise when school travel goes wrong. The deaths of the learners were a painful reminder that safety must remain the first priority whenever children are taken outside the school environment.
There is nothing beneficial from these useless trips. The only beneficiary is a school where by it gets free money from parents. These trips are so very expensive yet a child can google and read everything that you want to show physically. I cant allow my child to go for those useless trips.
Let the government ban these trips forever
But if students don’t see, touch or feel the world; the things they hear and learn about in class, do we expect them to imagine them, and get it right?
Regulate the travel -means/mode of transport, pricing, time and duration travel, but don’t ban school trips indefinitely. By the way, even parents die on the roads as they look for resources for the very learners; won’t they ban public travel at this rate (not likely, yet people continue to die on Ugandan roads)? Let the regulations on the use of public roads by motorists be more stringent and sustained.