GIFTS THAT INCREASE SCHOOL ENROLLMENT, SCHOLASTIC MATERIALS!!!

 

2023’s academic calendar commenced on the 6th of February. As usual, I reported to my placement school a day before studies resumed. Absurdly, only 36 learners reported to school on the official opening day. As for my primary one learners, only 7 learners were registered in my class that day of which 4 were boys and 3 were girls. That unprecedented turnup deprived my mind of peace and I pondered as to why that was so. That Monday evening, I visited some leaners I had taught the previous year whom I knew could have reported to school.

To my dismay, I found out that the very many children who couldn’t report to school was no intention of theirs. They simply lacked scholastic materials like pens or pencils, books and sets. This subsequently drove me to launch the Back-to-School Campaign to raise funds via LinkedIn and Facebook to support some of the children who stated the aforementioned reasons for having not reported. The campaign ran for about 9 days, the raised funds were enough to buy 2 boxes of classic books, each containing 24 dozens, 12 dozens of pencils and 1 box of Bic ball point pens.

Auspiciously, the parents meeting was held at school shortly after, and I had the opportunity to inform the parents that as I was going to distribute free scholastic materials to them. It was now their turn to send their children who had not reported due to lack of writing materials to school.

The campaign supported all the 120 primary 1 children who had thus far reported, each
getting 3 books and a pencil;50 learners in primary 2 and 50 learners in primary 3 were supported with a pencil and a pen respectively not excluding the orphans. All the P.6 learners got 6 books and a pen each.

The Back-to-School Campaign was an instrumental move towards increasing attendance and consequentially increased the overall school enrollment as well. The number of the learners shot up before the end of the second week. Many children from neighboring schools shifted to Lwatama Primary School in order to partake of the fruits of the campaign. This campaign was a great success thanks for the teamwork and an immeasurable support from my co-fellow miss Winny Chelangat.

Because of the above achievement, I am impelled to shout the mantra "Teach for Uganda, fired up and ready to go."

 

Andrew Kitaire

Teach For Uganda Fellow

Cohort 4

Lwatama Primary School

Namutumba District.

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