By Charles Osege
Students of Ongongoja Secondary School in Usuku Subcounty, Katakwi District, are taking lessons online. The e-learning services were installed by the National Information Technology Authority (NITA) of Uganda in partnership with UNICEF.
Katakwi, Uganda: Authorities in Katakwi district, eastern Uganda, say the district is currently affected by a lack of ICT equipment at their education centers, causing less competition with other regions.
Katakwi ditrict leaders attending a meeting with the community
This was raised during the presser supported by ActionAid International Uganda at Amoruongora primary school in Palam Sub County in Katakwi district during the belated celebrations of the Day of the African Child.
In his deliberations, RDC Katakwi District Maj. Godfrey Even Katamba said that most primary schools in his Katakwi District do not have ICT equipment like computers and the Internet, among others, causing the learners to lag behind.
Katamba added that a few schools, like Kokorio Primary School, with a population of over 1600, have only one ICT teacher with one computer system.
This is a problem that will not allow our learners to do research, as the new curriculum states.
Meanwhile, the district LCV, Katakwi Geofrey Omolo, said during a presser that these problems are caused by low funding to the lower local governments from the center.
Omolo added that another thing affecting his district is the issue of the wage where the Ministry of Public Service bared recruitment of new employees to the civil service.
Katakwi district leadership during a presser at Amoruongora primary school in Katakwi District
Katakwi is a hard-to-reach district in Eastern Uganda, and even network services from network service providers are not reliable, which makes research a tough solution to save the education system in the district.
He said that his district is short of over 400 teachers who could sometimes be helping learners with research and other activities in the new curriculum, which calls for research as one of the key aspects of learners participation in schools.
Omolo called for increased funding for the education sector so that ICT equipment can be rolled out to every school with the aim of not leaving any learner behind.
Electricity is also one of the challenges my district is facing since it is only on the roadside but can’t be accessed at schools like Obwobwo Primary School in Ongongoja Sub-County, Akisim BT Primary School in Ngariam, or Eve Angerepo Primary School, where some of the learners have never seen electricity poles.
On this matter, the RDC Katakwi Maj. Godfrey Even Katamba told DailyExpress that there was a recent mapping by the Ministry of Energy under the Rural Electrification Program that was conducted at the entire district to light up government institutions like schools, health centers, and lower local administrative units, among others.
RDC Katakwi District Maj. Godfrey Katamba
Katamba said this program will be implemented from July to August, when he calls upon those schools to prepare for the digital migration.
Patrick Olila, the Chief Administrative Officer for Katakwi, however, confirmed that his district will start recruiting teachers next financial year, though the recent recruitment flopped due to administrative issues.
Olila added that, if this is done, the issue of ICT will be major, and Katakwi as a district is ready to migrate to a digital world.
Katamba confirmed that, in each seed school in Katakwi, there is an ICT lab. With this kind of development, ICT challenges will die a natural death in Katakwi since there are more seed schools to be constructed in the district in the sub-counties of Okore, Getom, and Toroma, among others.
Katakwi District has over eighty-four primary schools with only one ICT teacher.