Last Thursday, a fraternity of private school owners gathered at Standard High School in Zana for the second delegates’ conference of the federation of non-state education institutions.
The day’s business saw directors from private kindergartens, primary and secondary schools as well as colleges working out the basics on how to make their federation work.
They had to agree on tenets of the memorandum and articles of association, as well as the election of some interim committee members. But the master stroke of the whole action was the invitation of the director of Basic Education, Dr Robinson Nsumba-Lyazi, and his colleague, the commissioner for Private Schools and Institutions, Ismail Mulindwa.
And the two men did not disappoint. Preferring to stay above the fray as the directors jostled for positions, the two gave their blessing to the federation. In separate speeches, Dr Nsumba-Lyazi and Mulindwa argued that the federation would bring directors together, making it easier for the education sector to relate with them on mutually important policy matters.
Mulindwa Said: This will put right what is not done the right way … so that you are taken seriously when the sector is distributing scholastic materials like textbooks and others”.
Nsumba-Lyazi was happy to pledge that once the federation was up and running, its executives would be invited to ministry meetings to help grind out pressing sector issues.
Expectedly, this attracted the loudest cheer and the greatest interest, since school owners have had innumerable complaints to make about the ministry for years.
Over the years, the ministry bureaucrats just locked themselves behind paneled doors and made decisions that irritated the school owners more. Now things will have to change, the bureaucrats will be sitting in those meetings with the school owners.
Hopefully, the smiles will be broader, as the ministry and the school owners agree on many issues. Alternatively, both will grin through the pain as the reality that some of their best hopes can’t be reached immediately, comes home.
In the end, it is always good when an extra set of brains gets ready to embrace and resolve the sector’s problems.
school@observer.ug