Luweero district education officer, Florence Bbosa Sekitooleko has challenged head teachers to improve their skills with email.
She explained that her emails to head teachers had gone unanswered, creating a communication gap between her office and several school heads. Sekitooleko made the remarks during an end-of-year meeting for all primary school head teachers at Pope John Paul II Pastoral Centre in Luweero late last month.
Sekitooleko said she had had a difficult time communicating to school heads during 2016 and urged them to brush up their email skills, as it was more affordable.
“A lot of money is spent in transport and phone calls. I asked you head teachers to open up email accounts but only one or two have done so,” she said. “It gives me headache to always call you by phone to come pick a document, go and work on it, after you return it. This is time-consuming. Please why don’t you embrace technology, leave the analogue world?”
She added that the problem is worsened by some head teachers switching off their telephones. Charles Mutumba, the chairperson of Bamunanika cluster which covers 20 primary schools, also doubling as head teacher St Mary’s Malungu PS Bamunanika, admitted to The Observer in an interview that the 19 head teachers under his jurisdiction have no email addresses, leaving him solely with it [email].
“I have also found it a problem to link the district’s education offices with the head teachers under my management,” he said.
Mutumba added that in his findings, the lack of power in far-located schools is also partly responsible for the head teachers’ slow response to use emails because they can’t use computers in their offices.
He stressed that since most of them have aged and are even not Information Technology [IT] savvy, they see no value in embracing the modern-day technology of using internet an attitude which has also seen them fail to buy internet enabled phones [smart phones] to access email wherever they may be.
“All of these 19 head teachers I manage have analogue phones. No one has a smart phone. Now sending them an email can’t even be checked on mobile phones,” he said.
However, James Ssonko, the head teacher, Luweero SDA primary school, said he had secured a computer recently and was planning on how to save on internet expenses, arguing that data charges are still high yet their budget is remarkably small.
Few use mobile phone numbers in the place of emails. And many young people who have not exceeded ordinary level have email addresses. This leaves queries why head teachers are not embracing digital technology.
bernardbakalu@gmail.com