Students of Mbarara High School and Ntare School who were arrested and held at Mbarara Central Station.
By IVAN OKUDA
Posted
Thursday, July 25
2013 at
01:00
It is that time of the school year when reading a newspaper
without reports of a school strike would actually be strange. In fact,
on the Jinja College students Facebook page, one student jokes that that
the Ministry of Education and Sports should legalise school strikes and
makes them part of the second term syllabus.
After all, the post by a
one Jude Mwima argues, “from Syria to Egypt, Kacita to teachers,
strikes are the new language that decision makers understand best.”
More
than 15 schools across the country have had their school operations
paralysed by student-led strikes, occurring in what could be described
as a ripple trend. Most of these have ended up in “closure till further
notice” by the line ministry. In Jinja alone for example, the storm
started with Kiira College, Butiki, spread to Busoga College, Mwiri and
only days ago, Jinja College. All these are government aided boys’
schools and arguably eastern Uganda’s giants in their own right. The
momentum has since picked pace across the country, with pockets of
student uprisings in the central region and western Uganda. The northern
region has not reported major cases of the same.
So, what is
fuelling these strikes? Why are they prevalent in second term and more
so in the eastern and western regions of the country? Could some
political mischief be at play? Is it a case of strained student-teacher
communication or just a generational question on the part of the
students?
The questions cannot get more rhetorical as Mr John Agaba,
the Acting Commissioner, Basic and Secondary Education admits the
ministry too, remains baffled.
“We have started investigations with
eastern Uganda to get to the root of the problem. But why are these
strikes always in second term? It is because these fellows fear mock
exams so they cause havoc and of course second term is the longest, ” he
says. We look at other reasons given.
Unruly students
For Mr Agaba, the blame starts and ends with the
students. “Imagine a school like Kitagata SS in Bushenyi where students
went on strike after a trip claiming they didn’t get value for money,”
he adds. “In Jinja College they striked [sic] because they were told to
read hard, they got angry with the Deputy Headmaster calling him harsh
for that but why did they go to school?” This, he is convinced, is the
reason the strikes rage on in small schools. “You don’t find them in
elite schools where students know what they want and their parents value
education.”
However, it should be appreciated that the schools in
Jinja for instance, that went on strike this term are arguably the
crème-de la crème in the region.
Mr Humphrey Ahimbisibwe, the former
Headmaster of Ntare School says, “These are not strikes but riots.
Those are undisciplined children who lack patience. There is a lot of
emphasis on their rights and we forget the responsibilities then the
ministry comes out quickly to blame school administrators.”
The
educationist who retired last year, having presided over a period of
some of Ntare’s infamous strikes blames the global political atmosphere
too.
“Everywhere people are striking to get answers and change so these students have no good examples to learn from,” he shares.
Potent problems
Micheal Miyingo, a former head prefect at Kiira
College, Butiki and now at a Malaysian university says, “School
administrations just don’t listen and keep giving empty promises and the
only language they understand is strikes. They have conditioned
students to take strikes as the only practical way out for change.”
Once at the front line of a strike, Miyingo opines
that the problem starts and ends with breakdown in communication
between teachers and students.
Mr Francis Agula, the acting Commissioner
secondary education in the Ministry of Education and Sports states, “It
is a multi-dimensional problem because many schools are facing a lot of
problems. The headmasters are failing to put in place what is expected
of a school. We have just had athletics but some schools could not
facilitate students and this angers them.”
Attributing this to financial constraints, Agula
reveals, “the Ministry of Finance in the financial year 2012/13 released
funds ahead of time and most schools thought the money would go in
every term. Money for the other quarters was advanced at once. We
alerted them that if you fail to plan for this money you are going to be
in the trouble.”
So has the trouble that the ministry warned of started biting?
“Some
teachers are using these students because their PTA allowance was
scrapped in some schools. What they forget is that those allowances are
not a right but a privilege. Once you have got your salary which comes
in time, go and teach,” Agaba says, adding, “But what business do
students have demanding for teachers’ allowances? Theirs is to study and
not strike under teachers’ influence.”
In Busoga College Mwiri, students who spoke to the
press premised their strike on the school’s declining academic
standards with the former giant contributing only three students to this
year’s public universities under the government sponsorship scheme.
This, the enraged students argued, is because their teachers are not
delivering.
Mr Agula admits, “It is true we have a shortage of
teachers. In the recent past we had only 600 government schools but now
they are over 1,300. So the teachers especially for science subjects
find themselves teaching in many schools and failing to meet the
students’ expectations. The result is strikes.”
A senior six student from Jinja College, who
preferred anonymity agrees, “Imagine our teachers have to go for regular
lessons in private schools in Kampala, they have no time for us because
the money they get makes students in schools like Kitende a priority.
When we strike, they say we don’t know what we want but we are saying
we also want to pass like those in schools where our teachers
moonlight.”
Agula is quick to tie the situation to inflation which he argues has disfigured school budgets.
“Head teachers budgeted for specific prices but
prices of goods have risen so when you hear students talking of our
rights it doesn’t make sense.” On top of this, he explains, “School
administrations have failed to collect fees from parents, may be because
of poverty but it is a crisis and schools cannot provide services.” One
teacher in a school in Jinja, who preferred anonymity said that by the
time the students went on strike, more than half of them had not cleared
the fees to zero balance.
Politics at play
Man is naturally a political animal and educationists point to
the same in the prevalent strikes. Mid last year, Mr Daudi Hasahya
Mulongo, then Headmaster Kiira College, Butiki blamed the strike on,
“people who want my job and are just using students.” He has since been
transferred to Manjasi High School in Tororo.
“Some times it is just
intrigue within the administrators, some clamouring for the big man’s
job and others are teachers in other schools eyeing the same job and
fuelling strikes to pave their way,” Ahimbisibwe ays.
Moral and generational issues abound
Ms Juliet Muwanguzi, a counsellor and teacher of literature in English at Kiira College, Butiki says, “There is a bit of laxity.
These kids have their own high expectations. They
have their own perception of their human rights and freedoms. When
leaders come up to intervene they reject that old time direction and
define their own direction. It is a generational problem that calls for
prayer and better parenting.”
Similarly, Ahimbisibwe in trying to explain why
the strikes are centred in the eastern and western parts of the nation
says, “It goes back to our value chain systems. To be frank with you,
students in Buganda are well groomed, you won’t find a Muganda child
throwing stones at an elder. In the west they will throw stones at the
Headmaster’s car! Some even tell you they know ‘big’ people in
government.”
Agula too explains through the same moralist lens,
“Students in the west and east have not gone through much suffering. A
student in the north knows should the school close, an opportunity to
study is gone. The same reason you find strikes in Busoga and rarely
hear of them in Teso where children have suffered.”
The psychology of a strike
It has always been observed that the everyday
issues that keep coming up when schools go on strike like poor quality
food, an incompetent administrations are a manifestation of several
cumulative and underlying factors. According to Mr Henry Nsubuga, the
Manager Makerere University Counselling and Guidance Centre, “Often
times these strikes erupt when students feel they are pushed against the
wall, they feel nobody listens to them and their complaints or ideas
fall on deaf ears. In that case the only way to prove their point is by
going violent, especially if they are convinced it will work.”
Bad examples from society
No
doubt society is getting more polarised, the language of strikes and
violence is spreading across the world. This trend of events, Nsubuga
explains, gives students, who are arguably at the most vibrant and
radical stages of their life, the impression that borrowing a leaf from
those who achieve change through violence will work in their own
situations.
“We [humans] are influenced by what we see, there
is that tendency to copy and try out what we see to solve our own
challenges, that is why you find in one region or district, schools
going on strike in a successive order. They [students] imagine they too
can achieve what their peers on the other end achieved by going violent
regardless of unique circumstances,” Nsubuga asserts.
Peer pressure
For some,
however, the conviction to throw stones and hurl threatening slogans
does not have to be induced by violent scenes from Syria or Egypt. It
takes the influence of fellow students to get them towing the line of
strikes. “It could be a question of peer influence; as human beings we
tend to conform. Some of those students, especially the gullible ones
take part in strikes out of peer pressure even when they have no
conviction in the cause. Group influence has such a big impact on how
they perceive situations at school and eventually react,” the
counselling psychologist notes.
What runs in their mind?
The
motivation to go on strike, he observes, determines what runs in the
mind of that student on strike and their behaviour during the same.
“If the student is motivated by genuine
conviction, say really pertinent issues that touch him, he will be
extremely bitter but with the mind and actions geared towards achieving
positive change or making their point. But for one who has just been
influenced, they will tend to act recklessly and with excitement,” he
says.
Explaining the trend
On
why the trend of these strikes tends to be concentrated in up-country
schools in the east and west, Nsubuga attributes this to the human
tendency to draw comparisons and contrasts. Students in the central
region for instance, where strikes are rare, are arguably better off
than their upcountry peers in terms of quality of services offered.
“If I may, I can compare schools in central to the
western world and those upcountry to third world countries, you notice
that the western world does not take issues of welfare for granted,
citizens (in this case students and parents) are actively involved in
decision making unlike in the third world,” he says, adding, ”so these
students up-country compare themselves to their peers elsewhere and
demand for the same services at all costs. It is a really a question of
psychology.”
Schools whose students went on strike this term
May
Busoga College Mwiri, Jinja
St. John Bosco Wakitaka Jinja
June
Jinja College
MM College, Wairaka Jinja
July
Comboni Secondary School, Bushenyi
Kitagata SS Mitooma
Kashaka Girls School Mbarara
Mutolere SS-Kisoro
Eden International School-Mbarara
Muntuyera High School-Ntungamo
Kyeizooba Girls School-Bushenyi
Bassajabalaba SS Bushenyi
Preventing strikes
Ms Victoria Kisarale, the headmistress of Gayaza
High School shares her success story on keeping strikes at bay.
“Communication is very critical, I tell my girls whenever I am
travelling, the purpose and when I will return. At the start of the year
I got complaints from the suggestion box about bad beans. I called an
assembly and apologised. I heartily apologise to them and they know I am
not doing it for the sake.”
She adds that the school administrators have
established structures where student leaders meet them every Tuesday and
either party is called to account with an appreciable degree of honesty
and openness.
Kisarale believes, “These students are the primary
consumers of our services so we have to be open with them. I break down
the school budget and plans every term so they feel involved and part
of the system. That way you cannot expect them to strike.”
editorial@ug.nationmedia.com
