Bubala Primary School

Here is Bubala Primary School, which serves 573 village children in Grades Primary 1 - 7.

As you can see, there are four classrooms inside the building, and another two are outside, each under a mango tree.

The head teacher, Edward, has his office outside under a third mango tree.  The school has 12 teachers in all - this is Godfrey.  He has to teach class quietly because the roof space is open along the length of the building and the sound travels to the classroom next door.  The teacher have textbooks and a blackboard but there are not enough copies and the children pencil their lessons in exercise books.

Although classes are not held on Saturday there were lots of children playing in the school grounds, perhaps because they were also fetching water from the borehole.

None of the little children spoke much English yet.  Most of the children in this area fail the final primary exam and many finish school at 13, particularly the girls, who tend to drop out once they reach puberty, partly due to the poor sanitation.  We met one girl who was 14 years old and already married with a baby. Few people leave the village - they are born here, marry here and till the land and raise their families.

Godfrey was quite demoralized - he told me that public school teachers are paid 250,000 Uganda Shillings a month, $100, and that he can't afford to educate his own three children on his teacher's salary.  Lunch (maize porridge) is provided for the teachers each day and cooked under the shade of another tree, but there's been a drought recently and the maize looked parched.  Godfrey asked if I knew of any programs that could help teachers or provide opportunities to travel to other countries for training.  I asked whether any children from the village go to university but it's not really affordable for the 80% of Ugandans living in rural villages, only for urban Ugandans that can afford private education.

I couldn't help but wonder if a new latrine was really the highest priority for the school (an older latrine stood right next to the new one) when they don't have enough classrooms and books, but you have to start somewhere and hopefully this will be the first of several improvements.  Paul took us to see the  local community centre, currently a completely empty building that the villagers can gather in.  His vision is to turn it into a library so that they can read and continue their education while visiting the centre.

I was interested to see the village's District Health Center II - this is the smallest kind of health center in the public health system, which I've been reading about.  The Center provides basic and maternal  health services.  On a national average only about one third of health worker positions at such centers are filled.  Peeking through the window I could see a computer terminal (although there's no power here) and boxes of medical supplies piled up.  Some medicinal herbs were cultivated by the building but it's mainly providing Western medicine.  There's also a small pharmacy in another part of the village.

Visiting the village was quite sobering - such a contrast to Kampala.  I don't think handouts are the answer but microfinance, giving people a hand up and equipping them to be able to earn more income, seems to provide hope for improving living standards in the future.