Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah has directed the Ministry of Education to go ahead and act on the House resolution to close all unlicensed public and private schools.
Oulanyah was chairing the House sitting on Thursday 1st February 2018. The directive followed a response by the Minister of State of Higher Education, Hon. John Chrysostom Muyingo, to a question asked by Hon. Herbert Kinobere (Kibuku) concerning the closure of unlicensed schools by the Ministry of Education.
Muyingo informed the House that the Ministry of Education had held a meeting with all Inspectors of schools from all districts and municipal authorities on 28th November 2016, and issued a notice to the unlicensed schools, about their closure if they didn’t comply with the regulations.
“On 16th March 2017, this issue was presented to this House and was forwarded to the Committee on Education. The Committee reported back to this House in April 2017, stating that the closure of the schools by the Ministry was justified,” he said.
Kinobere noted that the Minister was dealing with the Clause 31 of the Education Act which highlighted the requirements of operating a private school.
“The schools seek to permission to operate the schools and they are usually given a provisional license for two years; if the school does not comply, the license may be extended or the school closed,” he said.
He informed the members that in a meeting held at Hotel Africana on January 19th 2018, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr. Alex Kakooza, said that the schools that had started the process would be allowed to complete and not be closed down.
Oulanyah said that there was need to balance standards for both the public and private schools.
“The laws are in place and the institutions must apply to these standards. We took a decision to extend the period for the schools; there is a limit in which we should encourage impunity,” he said adding that “Over 1000 schools have complied. Let the Ministry act to improve on the standards of both the public and private schools.”
