The Office of the Prime Minister has delivered 400 iron sheets to Omoro District Local Government to support the renovation of two primary schools whose buildings were recently damaged by strong winds. The iron sheets were secured following a request by the Acholi Parliamentary Group Chairperson (APG), also the Omoro District Woman Member of Parliament, Catherine Lamwaka, after the disaster affected the two schools about a month ago.
The beneficiary schools are Aketket Primary School with an enrolment of 1,057 pupils and Minja Primary School, which sustained damage during the windstorm, affecting learning activities. Speaking at the handover of the iron sheets at Omoro District Headquarters on Tuesday, the District Chief Administrative Officer Donato Oola Lam said the donation is timely and will help address the resource gap in the education sector.
Oola urged parents to ensure their children attend school regularly and remain in school now that iron sheets have been donated to roof classrooms whose roofs were blown away by the storm a month ago. He also lauded Lamwaka for lobbying for the support and said the district would continue working to ensure schools benefit from the limited government resources allocated to the district.
Lamwaka noted that the donation followed part of her oversight visit to the affected schools, where she found a dire need to address pupils’ attendance in class following the destruction of their classes. The legislator said the prompt response from the government through the OPM will boost education and urged parents to support their children’s education by ensuring they attend school.
Lamwaka however, condemned the theft of school property, saying it undermines the operations of schools, and warned that the donated iron sheets must be used for their intended purpose.
Jackson Mwaka, the headteacher of Aketket Primary School, appreciated the OPM over what he described as a timely rescue for learners who were already having space challenges in the respective schools affected by the storm.
Mwaka said the affected classrooms had only been roofed in the past two years and blamed the contractor for shoddy work, saying old classroom blocks survived the storm. According to Mwaka, the donated iron sheets will help to roof the three upper classroom blocks for Primary Five, Primary six and Primary seven-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
