Oyam:Hope as FICH NGO supports Poor PLE Performing School

By  Chris  James Woo

Oyam, Uganda: Excitement has emerged among 7 poor performing UPE schools in Oyam district after an education learning visits to Abalokweri primary school in Apac district.

This was witnessed during an exchanged visits facilitated by Foundation for Inclusive Community Help FICH

Abalokweri primary school is a catholic founded UPE government aided school established in 2000 in Abalokweri village,Akokoro parish in Apac district in a 10 hecars piece of land but for the last 10 years,  they have been exceedingly performing well, a case in point in the 2023 PLE results Abalokweri primary school was ranked among the best performing schools in Apac. The school became number two with all  passing  in division one and two  despite the fact that they are in rural settings like the seven poor performing schools in Oyam district.

Victoria Harriet Anyango the programs manager of Foundation for Inclusive Community Help (FICH) incharge of education said this education learning visits was aimed at learning and comparing notes among seven poor performing schools in Oyam and Abalokweri primary school in Apac district so that they find the meaningful ways of addressing challenges resulting to poor performance of learners at UPE schools in Oyam district.

Victoria further explained that they have chosen Abakokweri because of its similar back grounds with these poor performing school in Oyam district where she said these are the schools that they have been working with them around the areas of parental empowerment and engagments and foundational literacy that they were implementing a curricalum to help the children who were behide to catch up in especially in P3 and they were also implementing in the right level programs.

Arazi Geoffrey the headteacher of Abalokweri primary school identified some good practices contributing to good performance at Abalokweri primary school and these includes set up of boarding section right from Nursery to primary seven which keeps all their education stakeholders engaged,group work is also one of the strategies they are using,implementation of school feeding program at school,motivation of teachers where each lesson is paid 2000 shillings after every lesson,positive atitudes of tameachers of teachers to teach and all teachers are subjected to have their children tought at this school but above all discipline is promoted at school through enforcement of english speaking among all the stakeholders.

Mr Arazi in his conclusion advises teachers to take teaching profession as they calling so that they can be awarded by God.

Francis Opeto Akaki who has works for 9 years as PTA chairperson of Abalokweri revealed that good accountability was one of the reasons that motivated their parents and other education stakeholders to continue supporting this school activities which had made the day today running of the school easier.

He further said other strategies which encouraged their parents to attend school meetings was good feeding esoecially during meetings where he says alway prepare meat and some nice soft drinks.

Depite of these good archievments Opeto also said they are still facing shortage of reliable water and good toilet facilities at school that seek for urgent intervenson of education stakeholders and well wisers.

After that engagment some education stakeholders in poor performing schools in Oyam district pledged full commitments to begin implementing what they have learnt from Abalokweri primary school for for the improvement of performance in their schools and these schools that participated in that education learning visits were Angweta,Alidi,Aloni,Omiri and Lela Olok primary schools among others.

Benson Ongom the inspector of schools incharge of Oyam South identified a number of challenges which is still affecting the performance of learners in Oyam district and these these challenges includes lack of parental care and support,insufficient facilities,negative atitudes of parents towards education,poverty,ignorance,domestic violence and other factors that needs collective responsibility inorder to addressed.

In 2023 Primary Leaving Examination, Oyam District recorded 164 Candidates in grade one mainly from a private owned schools and school dropout cases standing 20 percentage which represents 900 pupils. 

The case  has been attributed lack of meals, child's labour and low attributes by parents towards education.