The excitement of beginning school is a mix of emotions for any child. However, most eager faces are alarmingly younger than six years and struggling to cope.
One five-year-old P1 learner at Nalufenya primary school in Pallisa district is no exception. As early as three years, he often cried whenever his siblings left him at home. His mother’s patience for him to start school at six years old faded when he was five.
“He would carry bags and books of his siblings, signalling us to take him to school,” said the mother of eight.
Whereas the enthusiasm of this parent was commendable, it presented a significant challenge for teachers. At five years, the teachers advised her to enroll him in a nursery school but she had no money to facilitate the process. She is a housewife while her husband is jobless.
She said the child has struggled to adapt to the school environment. Her fears about the child’s slow progress came to light during the just-concluded 2024 National Learning Assessment of Literacy and Numeracy Skills conducted by Uwezo Uganda. The assessment, which lasted two weeks, targeted learners aged four to 16 in 29 districts. Some 20 households were reached in each of the sampled enumeration areas in every district.
“ARE CHILDREN LEARNING?”
In Pallisa, at least 300 households, 15 schools, and 15 villages were covered. Volunteers administered tests developed by curriculum experts and practising teachers to assess the learners. At the child’s home in Nalufenya village, out of the sampled 10 letters of the alphabet, he recognized letter O only.
His low mood was strengthened when one of the volunteers sang the alphabet. He happily joined in but jumbled up the letters. The child’s mother remarked: “He will repeat P1 next year. He is often dragged to the classroom, and doesn’t want to write.”
She said that whereas she was eager to help her son academically, she was a P5 dropout. Her child also failed to write his name and couldn’t handle the other questions of the assessment such as reading three to four-letter words. According to Fazirah Kakiya, a P1 teacher at Nalufenya PS, it’s an uphill task teaching underage children.
“They are not emotionally or intellectually prepared for the demands of formal education. They struggle to keep up, which affects their confidence and overall development,” Kakiya said, noting that the school receives more than 50 underage learners for P1 annually.
However, some eventually drop out of the school before the term ends. Okunguro PS, a UPE school serving nine villages, Soroti district, has 30 children under the age of five in P1. Out of the 315 learners enrolled in P1, the majority didn’t attain nursery school charges Shs 30,000 per term but its enrolment is also low.
The P1 class comprises the highest number of learners but the bulk are repeaters.
Agnes Achom, a P2 teacher at Okunguro, said: “The repeaters in P1 couldn’t read even the simplest English words. The learners couldn’t write or spell words using the local language [Ateso] which is frequently used during the teaching process at lower primary.”
HOUSEHOLD ASSESSMENTS
At the household level, there was a mismatch between what is being taught at school and responses from the children of various age groups. A 30-year-old mother of five in Nalufenya North village said this was the first assessment for her children. Out of four school-going children, only one passed the assessment. Her 11-year-old child in P2 struggled to read and preferred to look on as the volunteers assessed his siblings.
Another, a 14-year-old in P4, couldn’t read sentences but identified some letters in the words. She also failed multiplication and division numbers but did slightly better in addition. The eight-year-old in P1 could neither read nor do simple mathematics tasks after almost an hour of the entire assessment.
In another household headed by a 61-year-old grandfather, his three grandchildren lived up to the tasks. He doesn’t regret forcing one of the children, now in P4, to repeat P3 last year.
“The boy started P1 at five years but he was just being promoted with bad grades. His marks were completely below average and in one of the papers, he scored 3%. When he reached P3, I got stricter and asked the school to allow him repeat the class,” he said.
The child interpreted most questions with ease. One household with a 15-year-old child who has repeated P5 thrice declined to be assessed. She feared to give wrong responses, and hid in the next household.
Her father said: “I am forcing her to stay in school but she isn’t interested due to poor performance.”
HIGH ABSENTEEISM
Compounding the problems of underage enrollment and low literacy levels is the high rate of absenteeism that plagues UPE schools. At Okunguro and Nalufenya, the head teachers attributed chronic absenteeism to poverty, child labour, long distances to school, and the negative attitude of most parents towards education.
It was observed that for many families in Pallisa, the decision to send a child to school is weighed against the immediate economic benefits of having them contribute to household chores or income-generating activities. In some schools, children were absent for months, leading to significant gaps in their learning. Children are more engaged in school during end-of-term examinations.
“This is a Muslim-founded school established in 1955 with a mosque. However, we record low attendance every Friday because parents prefer children to pray from their localities. On Wednesdays and any rainy day, children don’t turn up at school,” Israel Kankanu, the head teacher at Nalufenya PS, said.
In addition, parents hardy provide scholastic materials to their children.
“Parents have reported me to the RDC several times for asking them to provide books and pencils for their children. I fear to be oppressed anymore and teachers no longer bother learners without scholastic materials.”
In 12 years, Nalufenya PS has registered only two first grades in 2013 and 2016. The head teacher of Okunguro PS, Richard David Olebo, also shared his frustration.
“Parents are more interested in report cards than the actual learning of the children. The enrolment for P1 is 315. A physical head count showed only 131 learners. The teachers are keen to improve learning outcomes but the negligence of the parents is a big setback.”
Moses Kagwa, the coordinator of the assessment in Pallisa, noted that some parents were too shy to give accurate information while others declined the interviews.
“The main cash crop in Pallisa is rice. So, parents deploy school-going children in rice gardens to scare birds towards the harvesting season. In the first and second months of every term, children are out of school, which interferes with their learning.”
Commenting on the underage children, the DEO of Pallisa, Ronald Omutujju, said this was a growing challenge in the district. During inspections, he said, the children are returned home but resurface when the authorities vacate the schools. The district now plans to conduct a head count to weed out all underage P1 children in schools.
“In some schools, head teachers contradict the management committees on the matter but they should stick to the ministry guidelines. For schools near landing sites, when parents go fishing, children are taken to schools. In simple terms, the P1 class is like a dumping ground for any child,” Omutujju said.
He added that effective learning is also hampered by the high pupil-to-teacher ratio. In 2023 PLE results, Pallisa was the 7th worst-performing district in Uneb examinations.
According to Dr Mary Goretti Nakabugo, the executive director of Uwezo and lead investigator in the assessment, the outcomes of the research will trigger discussions and actions for improving the quality and distribution of learning outcomes.
MINISTRY’S TAKE ON REPEATERS
In 2007, the government launched an automatic promotion policy for primary and secondary learners to progress from one class to another without considering the quality of their performance. While releasing the 2023 PLE results, the Education minister, Janet Museveni, overturned the policy.
The Education ministry spokesman, Dr Denis Mugimba, said all learners who would like to repeat a class are now allowed to do so.
“We are no longer implementing automatic promotion. Learners can repeat and the government will pay their capitation grant. The policy was [initially] based on the ill-informed stand that the government wouldn’t be paying capitation grant for the repeaters which was affecting learning outcomes,” Mugimba said.
As the ministry embarks on a comprehensive review of the policy as ordered by Mrs Museveni, it remains the hope of the mother to the five-year-old that her child improves academically once he repeats primary one next year, 2025.
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