Last week the debate on school arrival times for children flared up again, with the education sector weighing in. MOSES TALEMWA has been following the debate and gives the various angles to the subject.
Anita is just drifting into that sweet sleep, shortly before sunrise, when her alarm clock rings. It is 5am and time to wake up! With one light scream at the alarm clock – she grudgingly gets out of bed and heads to the shower. She has to get her two children (aged six and eight) up and ready for school.
Her children go to a day school some 20km away, but she has got to get them there before 7am; so, the journey starts with a shower and breakfast by 5:30am.
Then they hit the road at 6am. Anita’s children are lucky, she drives them to school in her car, and during the ride they get a chance to catch some sleep.
Others are not that lucky. They are usually bundled onto school shuttles at around the same time and trundled around, as more are picked up on the way to school. Those that live farthest from the school get onto the shuttle earliest, sometimes as early as 5:15am.
“We have no option … if you leave home after 6:50am, then we get caught up in traffic jams and end up at school long after 8am, which is not good,” Anita explains.
The misery is compounded by late returns home for those in the upper classes. Those in P6 and P7 occasionally leave school after 7pm, after some extra classes, in preparation for the primary leaving examinations.
Anita admits that she is aware that her children need to sleep till sunrise, but she has found a way of ensuring that they sleep eight hours before their wake-up time.
“They have their supper by 6pm and after an hour, they have to go to bed so that they are ready to start a new day at 5am,” she says.
NOT A UGANDAN PROBLEM
If you listened to Ugandans complaining, you would think only our children get to school well before sunrise. Well, while I was looking in the direction of Kenya, I found that there is a private school called Taifa Takatifu primary school, tucked deep inside the dusty village of Rumuruti in Laikipia county, in the rift valley.
Here, children as young as four years old brave biting cold, harsh terrain and empty stomachs to be in school on time at 6:30am. The school was ranked the best in last year’s Kenya Certificate for Primary Education exams in Laikipia West sub-county, with a mean score of 348 marks. And Taifa Takatifu is not the only one getting learners in before sunrise.
The phenomenon has many concerned. In Uganda, education minister Janet Museveni has called for controls on the problem.
“The national school calendar calls for classes to start at 8am and conclude at 5pm … parents need to be mindful of this,” she says.
Across the border, in 2015, the then Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi cautioned schools leaders against requiring learners to report to schools earlier than 7:15am. Prof Kaimenyi, who felt some schools were forcing learners to report to school as early as 5.00am, was especially bitter about the teachers.
“This is unethical educational practice that exposes learners to risks of getting to school that early hour of the day,” said Prof Kaimenyi in a February 4, 2017 interview with Kenya’s The Standard.
Just like the Education Act 2008 in Uganda, Kenya’s Basic Education Regulations 2015, demand that learners should not be in school earlier than 7:15am. The regulations also require that both public and private schools operate from Monday to Friday. Class hours are supposed to be from 8am to 3:30pm. The next 90 minutes (3:30pm to 4:45pm) are reserved for co-curriculum activities.
All institutions with boarding facilities are required to operate 24/7 with 8am to 3:30pm being class hours.
“From 3:30pm to 4:45pm is time for co-curricular activities from Monday to Friday, 5pm to 7:30pm is for self-direct activities Monday to Friday,” state the regulations.
Students in boarding schools are required to start their prep from 7:30pm to 9:30pm Monday to Friday and rest until 6am the following day.
GOOD Vs POOR SCHOOLS
Interestingly, in Kenya, the schools heads have expressed their reservation over the directive, saying that learners have to get to school on time in order to start learning programmes on time.
“It is the students who are supposed to do manual work. When they arrive in school after 7:15am, what time will they carry out such activities in order to be in class on time?” a school head told The Standard newspaper recently.
Here in Uganda, education officials have agonized over the problem for years. In a 2012 interview with The Observer, the commissioner for Basic Education, Dr Daniel Nkaada, complained about school heads who were convinced that excessive teaching would lead to better results in national examinations.
“These children are not robots … they are humans who need plenty of rest to be able to excel,” Dr Nkaada said at the time.
Dr Nkaada’s concerns were made following ministry reports that showed that some schools associated extra classes with good performances in national exams.
“Many schools think that if they keep pumping a lot of information into the children, they will eventually get better grades [in national exams] … it does not work that way,” he added.
But a cursory look around Kampala shows that many of the schools that are highly lauded in national exams for their good academic performances are open for classes as early as 6am!
At that time, all roads into the central business district have lots of children either walking or being driven to school. The idea of traffic jams around Mengo, Ntinda, Bugolobi and Ggaba road in mid-morning have been the norm, but to see the same situation at 6:30am sets off alarm bells in the eyes of Robert Ssentalo, a boda boda cyclist in Bukoto.
“It is always like this, but this is wrong. Someone needs to do something about it,” he says, almost helplessly. “I have a customer who told me her children are always exhausted.”
And there is more than what Ssentalo is saying. Anita, whom we talked about earlier, lives in Kajjansi and prefers to send her two daughters to Sir Apollo Kaggwa primary school in Mengo.
“It is the only good school I want my children to attend … so, it is a small sacrifice, but in the end it will be worth it,” she asserts.
Susan, who lives metres away from Sir Apollo Kaggwa primary school’s Kisaasi campus, sends her children to the Nakasero campus.
“The one in our neighbourhood is still new and we are yet to ascertain its capability,” she says.
Janet lives in Namugongo and prefers to send her son to Kabojja Junior School in Kololo. These scenarios affirm Dr Nkaada’s concerns.
“These parents live near relatively good schools, but they choose to ignore them and go for those that they think are better, leading to all this chaos,” Dr Nkaada said in 2012.
Interestingly, all these parents have good schools in their neighbourhoods, but have established preferences that are miles away from their homes, hence the need to drive long distances, early in the night to get their children to school by 7am at the latest.
Dr Nkaada says he appreciates these concerns but thinks parents ought to trust that their children will thrive in school without the need to spend almost all their waking lives around a classroom.
SCHOOLS TO BLAME
However, some parents are intent on shifting the blame to the schools that open their gates early. One such parent, who insisted on anonymity, said her child’s school, Daffodils kindergarten, welcomes children in early.
On Wednesday last week, the school held a parents and teachers meeting where the school administration complained that some of the parents were bringing their children too early.
But this parent, a hotelier in Kampala, admitted that she brings her children into the school early on the grounds that her workplace has regular 7am meetings.
“My husband works upcountry; so, I’m the only person engaged in the school errands”, she said. “If I had an option, I would take them to boarding schools.” This parent has two children: one aged nine years, who is in boarding school and another aged five years, who is in middle class and braving the early morning rides to school.
On this school’s circular, the latest a child is required to report at 7:40am. Anyone arriving at 8am or later is deemed late and the parent is requested to sign in a book for habitual latecomers. Another parent also of this school says nursery children need to come at least after 7am as even teachers cannot make it to school by 6am.
“My children wake up at 5:30am and reach school by 7:20am. However, I make sure they go to bed by 7:30pm.
“I agree with the ministry because what rocket science is the child of nursery going to be taught at that time. Really, this is not good.” In their defense, several school head teachers argued that they are only driven by the need to protect the children. For instance, at City Parents school, Matin Isagala says no classes occur at this school before 7:30am.
“We are very relaxed about what time children can come in, as long as it is not beyond 8:30 am, “Isagala said. Isagala also explains why his gates are open by 6am.
“We have parents who work as far away as Entebbe and they bring their children early…so, the teachers are usually outside the class to welcome the children into the school.” The teacher on duty at Sir Apollo Kaggwa primary school who insisted on anonymity as she is not authorised to speak, said they open their gates early since, “we can’t lock out the pupils until 7:30am, as it would be inhuman.”
SOCIAL/MEDICAL COST
However, in all of this, Anne Ampaire, a child psychologist at Makerere University, says unless it is moderated, there is an price to pay for getting children to school early.
“These children should be given more time to rest early at the end of the day, and on the weekend, or else they could end up psychologically unhinged,” she said.
mtalemwa@observer.ug