The Uganda People’s Congress has Wednesday asked government to fix the disparities in the academic performance as indicated in the recently released Primary Leaving Examinations.
Andrew Omara, Head of Communications at UPC said that although the Ministry of Education registered an improvement in marks, there is still existing disparities in performance between schools in urban and rural areas, and also private schools and UPE schools.
“We congratulate all those that passed their exams, but at the same time we are concerned about our children in UPE schools that are doing badly.
While addressing the media at UPC headquarters, Omara said when the opposition party was still in power, they adequately provided for the education sector and thus urged the current regime to do the same.
“Our advice to government is to pick a leaf from the years we were in power and how we handled education by increasing investment to ensure teacher-pupil ratio and pupil -textbooks ratio were impressive,” he said.
“The current budgetary allocated per pupil is totally inadequate and is leaving the rural schools at an unacceptable disadvantage compared to the majority of the urban schools”.
Omara also said that the situation is further compounded by the tough economic situation in the rural areas where parents are struggling to provide for the families at home let alone provide meal for their children at school.
“We urge government to reassess its budgetary priorities and focus on giving this next generation a better chance in their future by intervening now”.