Uganda: Children abandon school to work in sand mining, agricultural plantations & fishing sectors
"Kayunga children abandon school for sand mining"
Twelve-year-old Peter Kasule, a Primary Five pupil at Nabuganyi Church of Uganda Primary School in Busaana Sub-county, Kayunga District, dropped out of school in second term last year. He was lured into sand mining at Nabuganyi Landing Site on the banks of River Nile in Busaana Sub-county by boys his age, who joined what seems a lucrative venture to earn a living. “My elderly father is unemployed and told me to go and look for some work to fend for the family; that is how I ended up in sand mining,” Kasule reminisces. He is now employed by men to scoop sand from the river for which he is paid a paltry Shs5,000 per trip of a canoe full of sand. “My dream was to become a lawyer and I am still optimistic that after raising enough money, I will go back and achieve my dream,” the visibly shy Kasule says...
Kasule is among hundreds of pupils in the district who drop out of school to eke a living through sand mining, cutting sugar cane, scaring away birds from rice gardens, vending vegetables in towns, bricklaying and fishing. This trend, the district leadership says, is worrying as it is depriving pupils of a brighter future. The sand miners use canoes to go to sections of the river where the sand is found. They then plunge under the water from where they scoop the sand using spades and place it in the canoe. When the canoe is full, they take it to river banks where it is off-loaded. A trip of river sand goes for Shs500,000...
Mr Ramadhan Simali Kayunga, an inspector of schools for Ntenjeru County, says every term, at least 70 pupils drop out of school in the area. “We have tried to sensitise parents on the need to invest in their children’s education but our efforts have not yielded much as parents seem not to value education,” Mr Simali says... Mr David Ssentamu, the head teacher of Nabuganyi Church of Uganda Primary School, which is located about a kilometre from River Nile in Busaana Sub-county, says some learners report to class twice a month while others spend months without coming to school. “They spend most of the time mining sand or fishing and only report when exams are about to begin,”