LACK OF BRIDGE ESCALATES SCHOOL DROPOUT RATE IN RINGILI PRIMARY SCHOOL

Ringili Primary School Sign Post. Photo by Godwin Abedican.

By Godwin Abedican

Arua

The pupils of Ringili primary school in Arua district have continued to abandon school and dropout as they face challenges in accessing the school. This is as a result of lack of a bridge across Ozukuva stream located in Amureva village that they cross from.

The school administration is therefore concerned that, if this is not responded to, then many more learners are expected to drop out of school.

Speaking to Radio Pacis in an interview, Ajidiru Rose, the head teacher of the school said, as the rains continue, the stream always floods, leaving leaners with the option of either following a longer route to the school which takes more than an hour for them to arrive at the school or chose to stay home with parents also advising their children in lower primary to stay home.

According to the Head teacher, the lack of a bridge on the stream has greatly affected enrollment in the school. “The failure to construct that bridge has affected and continues to affect this school badly. The learners from across the stream are really suffering. There are a few who would wish to come and some of the learners on seeing bad weather while still at home don’t come to school. And when they come, as soon as they arrive, if they see change of weather, they just leave class and run back home. They lose a lot in the process. It’s really so bad that we are losing so many learners from those ends. As a school, we really feel that if possible, the government should work on this bridge,” Ajidiru appealed.

Ajidiru Rose, the Headteacher Ringili primary school.
Photo by Godwin Abedican.

The road across the stream in question connects a number of villages to Ringili primary school which is the nearest government aided primary school in the area.

One and a half years ago, Arua district delivered some metallic culverts at Ushindi Secondary School reportedly to be installed across the stream but these have remained un used.

The headteacher further says that with the Primary leaving examinations approaching they are already weighing options for the learners to start sleeping with teachers in case the rains continue during the examination period as they try taking extra burdens of creating extra time for the disadvantaged learners.

“When we speak to these learners, we tell them to use the long route. And bear the situation because we feel that, when they just remain there at home, they lose a lot. We sympathize with them and in most cases, they come late because they use a very long route. The best we do is to give them time to copy notes on what is taught while they are still on the way from their friends and request them to go to teachers in cases where they don’t understand what they have copied from their friends.”

“For the primary seven candidates who would always want to run back home, sometimes we tell them to sleep with their colleagues and teachers on the side of the school. We have been making the appeal for the construction of the bridge over and again but no one is paying attention and the government keeps watching as learners drop out of school. Due to the reducing number of learners as a result of the dropouts, the government support inform of capitation grants to the school keeps reducing and therefore affects performance in the internal and national examinations in the school because we can’t fund a number of activities including hiring extra teachers and facilitation of other activities that aid learning” she added.

It’s now close to 17 years since the last bridge constructed by whites from Kuluva Hospital collapsed. But to date the district has failed to reconstruct a bridge across the stream on grounds that this is not a district road but a community road hence the community is supposed to be the one responsible for the construction of a bridge.