Uganda: 538 Pupils Share Three Teachers As Nebbi School Battles Severe Overcrowding

Every morning, 538 children squeeze into three cramped classrooms at Paleo NFE School in Nebbi District, where a severe shortage of teachers, classrooms and desks has left pupils learning in overcrowded and difficult conditions.

The school, which has operated for about 25 years on the same half-acre piece of land, has only three teachers to serve its 538 learners.

Primary One alone has 340 pupils, while Primary Two has 134 and Primary Three has 64, according to school records.

The pupil-teacher ratio is particularly alarming in the lower classes, standing at about 340 pupils to one teacher in Primary One and 134 to one teacher in Primary Two, far above the recommended ratio of one teacher for 53 learners.

The overcrowding is also reflected in classroom space, with as many as 340 Primary One pupils taught in a single classroom.

Pupils in the lower classes have no desks and are forced to sit on the floor, while Primary Three learners study in a one-room grass-thatched structure donated by a well-wisher in 2000.

According to Teddy Oyeru, the headteacher of Paleo NFE School, the school never had a permanent classroom for Primary Three because it originally offered only Primary One and Primary Two.

"Each year when children finished P.2, they had nowhere to go. To continue, they had to trek 4km to Azingu or 3km to Omyer, and so many of them dropped out. It broke our hearts, but we had no classroom to give them," Oyeru said.

She said the school previously had more teachers, but several were terminated after failing to meet the required academic qualifications.

"We had more teachers before," Oyeru said. "But the Ministry terminated them for lacking qualifications. Now it is just three of us struggling with 538 pupils."

The shortage has also increased the workload of the headteacher, who said she is required to teach full lessons alongside the other teachers despite her administrative responsibilities.

Oyeru said parents have limited capacity to support the school because most of them are peasant farmers.

She appealed to education stakeholders and local leaders to help the school acquire additional land, saying the limited space is preventing the development of proper infrastructure.

Innocent Openjtho, the Nebbi District education officer, said the district has written to the Ministry of Education and Sports seeking to have all seven Non-Formal Education (NFE) centres in the district upgraded into fully fledged primary schools.

"We have written to the Ministry to have all our NFE schools elevated to fully fledged primary schools," Openjtho said.

He said the district was aware of the challenges facing the centres but could not close them because doing so could force many children out of school.

"We are aware of the overwhelming number of learners in those NFE schools, but we can't just close them because we have few teachers or limited structures. We fear these learners may drop out, so we rather keep them in school," Openjtho said.

Data from the Nebbi District education department shows that the district has 979 teachers serving 102 government-aided primary schools.

Paleo NFE School received Shs1.7 million in capitation grants last year, while the allocation increased to Shs2 million this year.

However, school administrators say the funding remains insufficient to address the school's needs, including supporting additional teachers through Parent-Teacher Association contributions.

Paleo NFE is one of seven NFE centres operating as Complementary Opportunities for Primary Education (COPE) centres in Nebbi District.

The centres are located in Alala in Acana Sub-county, Okeyo in Ndhew Sub-county, Kulekule in Alala Sub-county, Nyaful in Akworo Sub-county, Otwago in Erussi Sub-county and Olyeko in Nyaravur-Angal Town Council, with seven centres collectively enrolling 3,882 learners.

Alala COPE Centre has the highest enrolment, with 1,687 learners from Primary One to Primary Seven and support from Plan International.

Kulekule has 633 learners up to Primary Four, followed by Paleo with 538 learners up to Primary Three and Nyaful in Akworo with 505 learners.

COPE was developed in 1994 and 1995 by the Ministry of Education and Sports in collaboration with UNICEF as a non-formal and flexible approach to primary education for disadvantaged children and young people who missed regular schooling because of poverty, conflict, child labour or other barriers.

The programme was designed to provide children who had been excluded from conventional schooling with an alternative route to basic education.

For Paleo NFE School, however, the growing number of learners has outpaced the available classrooms, teachers and other resources, leaving the school struggling to provide even the most basic learning environment.

Read the original article on Nile Post.