By KT Reporter
Authorities in Moroto Municipality are considering closing the boarding facilities at Child Jesus Primary School for operating illegally.
The Catholic-founded school, which has an enrollment of about 1,000 learners, runs both day and boarding sections. However, due to a lack of proper dormitories, the school converted its main hall into a makeshift boys’ dormitory.
The matter came to light after the arrest of two senior staff members and the dormitory warden in July 2025, following allegations of sodomy. The arrests were made after a 14-year-old survivor and his mother reported the case to police.
A spot check by our reporter revealed that the dormitory warden—the prime suspect—had been sharing the same dormitory with the boys. The facility was in poor condition, with windows sealed using burglar-proof metal, raising safety concerns, particularly in the event of fire.
Education officials later confirmed that the school’s boarding section was being run illegally and did not meet the required safety standards. Jimmy Okello, the Municipal Council Principal Education Officer, said they only discovered the illegal operations at the end of the school term, which prevented an immediate closure.
Okello stated that the school has been instructed not to reopen the boarding section in third term unless it complies with the recommendations, including obtaining an operating license from the Ministry of Education. He added that the education and health departments will jointly inspect the facilities before granting approval.
Okello also revealed that some of the teachers at the school were unqualified, with many lacking professional registration certificates. He directed them to apply online through the Teacher Management Information System (TMIS) and warned that those who fail to comply will be discontinued.
Moroto Acting Resident District Commissioner, Justine Samuel Tuko, noted that the school’s good performance has attracted more learners than it can accommodate. Tuko directed the education department to conduct an assessment to establish whether the school has the capacity to handle its large population.
He emphasized that without fulfilling the required standards, the school will not be allowed to operate.
He also questioned the management’s decision to allow the warden to share a dormitory with the boys instead of providing him with separate accommodation. Tuko stressed that the issue of boarding facilities must be addressed urgently, warning that failure to comply with recommendations would lead to closure.
Nicholas Abola, Commissioner of Information and Communications at the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity under the Office of the President, said the school had violated Ministry of Education standards and wondered why education officials had remained silent.
Abola described the boarding facilities as substandard and recommended that the Ministry of Education close the school for the safety of the learners. He criticized the district education department for failing in its duty to monitor and inspect the school,
arguing that if inspections had been conducted properly, the alleged sodomy incidents—said to have persisted for over a year—would have been detected earlier.
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