Education officials in Hoima district are concerned about the poor reading skills in the district.
The July National Assessment of Progress in Education-NAPE by UNEB found out that only 5% of the pupils in Hoima could could read in P3.
The assessment covered both private and government schools. A team of UNEB and district Education officials sampled reading skills by giving assessment exercises.
Deogratius Byabagambi, the Hoima district Inspector of schools says only one of the 20 sampled P3 pupils managed to read English and Runyoro without difficulties.
The inspector of schools attributes this to the teachers’ failure to expose pupils to reading novels to improve their reading skills especially in lower primary.
Under the thematic curriculum introduced by ministry of Education five years ago, pupils from P1-P3 are taught in their mother language.
Although the arrangement intends to help pupils at this level easily understand in their local language, inspector Byabagambi wonders why children at P3 cannot read.
The district is working with World Vision Area Development Project ,to sponsor radio programs equipping teachers with skills on how to improve on children’s reading.
Education officials are visiting schools to encourage teachers on the same for improvement.
The ministry has also dispatched a consignment of more than 300 text books to the district to boost reading and learning.
Peter Bahungule, a retired Head teacher describes the trend as worrying and blamed teachers for the plight of the pupils. The head teacher now in his 80s says during his time a pupil in P3 could read and write without difficulty.
But teachers are not taking the blame. Irene Kabaruungi a P3 teacher at Mukabara primary school in Kiziranfumbi Sub County says teachers are overwhelmed by the number of pupils in class.
Kabaruungi explains that she has over 150 pupils and this makes it difficult for her to follow up on them.
