Story By Chris Woo
Excitement has emerged among 7 poor performing UPE schools in Oyam district after an education learning visits to Abalokweri primary school in Apac district
This was witnessed during an exchanged visits facilitated by Foundation for Inclusive Community Help FICH
Abalokweri primary school is a catholic founded UPE government aided school initiated in 2000 in Abalokweri village,Akokoro parish in Apac district in only 10 hecars piece of land but for the last 10 years they have never failed to get first grade, a case in point in the 2023 PLE results Abalokweri primary school was ranked in position two in Apac district after registering 10 children in division one and the rest passed in division 2 and 3 despite the fact that they are in rural settings like the seven poor performing schools in Oyam district.
Victoria Harriet Anyango the programs manager of Foundation for Inclusive Community Help (FICH) incharge of education said this education learning visits was aimed at learning and comparing notes among seven poor performing schools in Oyam and Abalokweri primary school in Apac district so that they find the meaningful ways of addressing challenges resulting to poor performance of learners at UPE schools in Oyam district.
Victoria further explained that they have chosen Abakokweri because of its similar back grounds with these poor performing school in Oyam district where she said these are the schools that they have been working with them around the areas of parental empowerment and engagments and foundational literacy that they were implementing a curricalum to help the children who were behide to catch up in especially in P3 and they were also implementing in the right level programs
Arazi Geoffrey the headteacher of Abalokweri primary school identified some good practices contributing to good performance at Abalokweri primary school and these includes set up of boarding section right from Nursery to primary seven which keeps all their education stakeholders engaged,group work is also one of the strategies they are using,implementation of school feeding program at school,motivation of teachers where each lesson is paid 2000 shillings after every lesson,positive atitudes of tameachers of teachers to teach and all teachers are subjected to have their children taught at this school but above all discipline is promoted at school through enforcement of english speaking among all the stakeholders.
Mr Arazi in his conclusion advises teachers to take teaching profession as they calling so that they can be awarded by God.
Francis Opeto Akaki who has works for 9 years as PTA chairperson of Abalokweri revealed that good accountability was one of the reasons that motivated their parents and other education stakeholders to continue supporting this school activities which had made the day today running of the school easier.
He further said other strategies which encouraged their parents to attend school meetings was good feeding esoecially during meetings where he says alway prepare meat and some nice soft drinks.
Despite of these good achievements Opeto also said they are still facing shortage of reliable water and good toilet facilities at school that seek for urgent intervention of education stakeholders and well wishers.
After that engagment some education stakeholders in poor performing schools in Oyam district pledged full commitments to begin implementing what they have learnt from Abalokweri primary school for for the improvement of performance in their schools and these schools that participated in that education learning visits were Angweta, Alidi, Aloni, Omiri and Lela Olok primary schools among others.
Benson Ongom the inspector of schools incharge of Oyam South identified a number of challenges which is still affecting the performance of learners in Oyam district and these these challenges includes lack of parental care and support,insufficient facilities,negative atitudes of parents towards education,poverty,ignorance,domestic violence and other factors that needs collective responsibility inorder to addressed
Ongom added that as a district they have now embark on sensitization as a way of creating awareness so that by two or three years they can be able to improve with the help of their development partners like fich.
In 2023 primary leaving examination Oyam district registered only 164 candidates in division with majority of candidate from private schools and the rate of school drop in oyam district is still standing at 20% where over 900 pupils drops out of school annually especially due to child labour and lack of mid day meal according to a recent report from the senior education Officer of Oyam district David Adea and the best government aided primary school was Aber p7 with only three candidates in division one.
Currently Abalokweri has a total enrolment of 1239 learners with 684 boys and 555 girls despite of its rural settings however it
