“This school used to be better.” Our DOS (Director of Studies), Madam Aloro Ester, tells me one day. We were sitting outside the administration block in the cool shade of a nearby mango tree. Ester has some passionate views. Ones that she voices almost everyday she is at the school. She is always ranting about some issue, usually concerning politics, education, the food, or our “undisciplined” students.
Sometimes I join her just for fun. All the Ugandan teachers in the room get a huge kick out of that. I will go on rants about how sick I am of posho and beans for lunch and ask why they don’t give us something else. Or we will talk about daily happenings in Uganda and I will question them and tell them it makes no sense to me.
Back to the mango tree, we were both sitting there. I was watching as she called students over and told them to “tuck in” their uniforms and be smart. Then a group of seven girls got caned for skipping class. It looks pretty painful from up close. Caning doesn’t happen often at my school, so I was a bit surprised.
Mrs. Aloro Ester explaining her frustrations
After the beatings, she started talking to me about how Kamuge High School used to be a few years ago. The students were more disciplined, they wanted to learn, their performance was better, and teachers were paid more. She told me that when the Ministry of Education introduced Universal Secondary Education (USE), everything started to deteriorate at Kamuge High.
The school could no longer accept school fees. Before USE was implemented, the school was charging 49,000/= per student per term. That’s around $25. This money was used to reimburse teachers for public transportation costs in their commute to and from the school. These costs can sometimes add up to 25-30% of their monthly pay. It was also used to reward teachers for better performance. This money is no longer there. The teachers do not get reimbursed for travel expenses and bonuses are unheard of. They received a huge pay decrease from a salary that is already ridiculously low. Some make $100-200 a month.
The students now pay nothing, zero. Which means the families also pay nothing. Not a shilling. When was the last time you received something for free? Do you still have it? Did you value it all that much? Do you even remember what it was? Now, what was the last thing you purchased? How much was it?
My point is, I believe making education completely free at this school was a really bad idea. Because it is free, I don’t think the families or the students value it as much. Because it is free, I think the students have less incentive to come everyday and the families have less incentive to make their children come everyday. Spending money hurts, and if they spent money on school fees for their kids, they’re more likely to make them go and get their money’s worth. Especially here, in country where money is so scarce.
The government mandated that the school must accept everyone. Fine, I have no problem with this. But it exploded the school population. It is now double what it was in earlier years. And the government did nothing to increase the resources of the school to handle the increase in volume. If anything, it decreased the resources indirectly by decreasing the money flowing into the school.
The government mandated that the school must accept ALL new S1 students with an aggregate P7 score of 28 or less. Ok, translated into American education terms, this would be like admitting a student who just completed 8th grade with an average of 30% or better in all courses into high school with no questions asked. Furthermore, the government mandated that we are not allowed to fail ANY student whatsoever. Each student must be allowed to move on to the next grade no matter how poorly they perform.
The government also made caning illegal. The teachers claim that this is the only way to discipline the students. I happen to disagree but it’s just one more thing that adds to their difficulties.
Ester talked about how she used to love being a teacher. She loved to come to school and teach students who were eager, disciplined, and ready to learn, students who respected the teacher and performed well. Now she says she has lost all her love for the profession. And who can blame her after all that has happened?
Universal Secondary Education, hm, it sounds great. Accessible education for everyone? Yeah, it’s a great ideal and one every nation should strive for. But the way it has been implemented in some parts of this country has had devastating effects on the quality of education.
Our school’s results came out from last year. We had zero students finish in Division 1. Doesn’t really mean much to people back home, but it is bad. And the teachers sit around and talk about how disappointed they are in the students, and then they sort of laugh about it and talk about how bad everything is, it’s an interesting dynamic that plays out.
Friday marked my 1-year anniversary since arriving in Uganda. Only 1.25 more years to go! To reflect on the title of this post, I guess I yearn for the American ideals I had come to learn during my first 26 years of life. But I know that is an unrealistic goal. In some ways it feels like I have learned and accomplished a lot, in others I feel like I have accomplished nothing, a common Peace Corps reflection among many volunteers.
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