The exercise is intended to provide the Ministry of Education and Sports with verified enrolment figures for purposes of allocating capitation grants under the Universal Secondary Education (USE) programme. The school had reported an enrolment of 6,414 students in the second term. However, the initial headcount found only 4,476 students had reported for the third term.
Wilfred Oluka Okeriau, the headteacher of Soroti Senior Secondary School, said the school had struggled to establish the exact number of learners because attendance fluctuates. “Soroti SS being a day school, it was only 4,468 students present, and yet the estimate should have been over 6,000 students,” Oluka said.
Oluka said some learners attend school irregularly while others have taken up casual employment in businesses around Soroti City. “Establishing the exact number was very difficult. Some attend class for two or three days, and on other days, they are not there. I even discovered that there are students who are employed at the supermarkets around town,” he said.
He said some learners spend several days away from school before returning to continue their studies. Oluka, however, said some of the variation could also be explained by learners transferring to other schools. “Sometimes the variation happens when students transfer to other schools, and that will cause the variation, but the variation should always be around 200 students missing,” he said.
The school has started using local radio stations to call upon learners who have not returned to school to report for studies. Michael Obuya, the Soroti City Education Officer, said absenteeism was significantly higher in the third term compared to the previous term. He said the physical headcount recorded 2,182 male students and 2,294 female students, bringing the total to 4,476 and creating a variance of 1,938 learners from the previous term’s reported enrolment.
“The absenteeism is too high. We pay the capitation grants according to the numbers,” Obuya said. He directed the school administration to mobilise all learners before another physical headcount is conducted, saying government funding would be based on verified enrolment figures. “The letter from the Ministry of Education states that we should conduct the headcount and pay as per the verified number. When we come for a physical headcount, we pay the capitation grant based on that number,” Obuya said.
He said the verification exercise should cover all government-aided schools in Soroti City, from primary to secondary and tertiary institutions, to ensure that government grants are allocated according to actual enrolment. “We do not want to delay with this capitation grant money; we want to have it deposited into the school account but with verified student numbers,” Obuya said.
The ongoing headcount is also expected to establish whether the reported enrolment figures accurately reflect the number of students attending the school and whether there are any irregularities in the records used to determine government capitation grants. The school administration has since indicated that as of Tuesday, September 22, the number of missing students had reduced to slightly more than 200.
However, that figure has not yet been independently verified by the Soroti City education authorities, who say the headcount is still ongoing-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
