The State Minister for Higher Education, Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo has ordered immediate closure of the boarding section established at St. Andrews Seed School located at Ndwaddemutwe in Kimenyedde Sub County Mukono district.
Muyingo made an order after commissioning the school on Tuesday. He noted that according to the government’s policy, Seed schools are intended to serve learners within the communities where they are located and therefore, there is no need for establishing a boarding section.
The school started a boarding section which had so far attracted 57 students of classes senior one to four each paying Shillings 570, 000.
The School Head Teacher, Nathan Kigongo says the boarding section is among the projects started by the school to finance an extra number of teachers hired to support the few enrolled on government payroll.
The school has 16 teachers on government payroll in charge of 507 students in senior to four. Kigongo reveals that the teaching staff ceiling is 31. The school facilitates nine more teaching staff who are not on government payroll.
Mukono Chief Administrative Officer James Nkata acknowledges that there is generally a staffing gap in most of the government secondary schools within the district.
He however appeals to the government to absorb the privately teaching staff within government schools in public service to solve the challenge.
“Luckily, we almost every year have unspent wage balances in secondary school staff salaries.” Nkata reveals.
The community of Kimenyedde is nonetheless grateful for the school. Suule Kawooya, a parent of two students but also the LCI Chairperson of Ndwaddemutwe village notes that it is the first government secondary school in the entire sub county.
The sub county has had only one private secondary school of Springs college located at Kawongo parish about five kilometers from the seed school.
St. Andrews Seed School is among the other schools commissioned today in districts of Mukono, Buikwe and Kayunga. Other schools include Nazigo Seed School at Kayunga and Sugu Seed School at Buikwe.
The school has been given structures which include six furnished classrooms accommodating 60 learners each, main hall, equipped computer and science laboratories, pit-latrines and CCTV system with one server.
A total of 1.9 billion Shillings has been spent on the project funded by the government and world bank whose contract was awarded to Haso Engineers Company Limited.
The school has been constructed on close to six acres of land donated to the government by Mukono Diocese, Church of Uganda.
So far Mukono district has 205 government aided schools of which 187 are primary and 19 secondary schools.
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