Schools across the country are entering the final bend of the penultimate term of the 2026 academic year.
As learners prepare to write their second term papers, the report card that has been stitched together thus far makes for grim reading. It has been an eventful, if not challenging, year for learners as much as those who put them through school.
This is no small part thanks to the litany of trips and other such events stacked across a term that, perhaps unsurprisingly, come at a fee widely described by different schools-private or public-as modest. The consequences are anything but.
The unfortunate episode that played out when a contingent from King David Junior School made what turned out to be an ill-fated trip to the sleepy eastern district of Kapchorwa has placed a welcome spotlight on a pain point. To be clear, this is one of many pain points known to have subsisted for a protracted spell amidst the commercialisation of education in the country.
After scores of pupils from King David Junior School perished in the ghastly accident on Chekwatit Hill last month, the Government of Uganda (GoU) announced a temporary ban on school trips.
This, it added, is until an investigation into the matter reaches a logical conclusion. While the intervention is welcome, it pretty much underscores the GoU’s long-standing tradition of playing the proverbial ostrich: the head is always buried in the sand.
There is no great secret to, or difficulty in, understanding why a growing number of schools in the country are opting to turn trips into an out-and-out cash cow. It is precisely the reason why learners will, in the coming days, break off from school a couple of weeks before the second term officially ends.
This modus operandi has been normalised so much so that parents/guardians of learners have stopped complaining.
Such overt actions help the sheer number of schools that dot the country to balance their ledgers. It should not be hard to figure out that a school can save an astronomical amount of money when learners take their second term break earlier than usual. Money that would have been spent on energy, water and food bills, to mention but three, ends up going to the school’s piggy bank.
This is no small beer, especially if it is taken together with what is typically saved after keeping operating costs during school trips dangerously low. This tacit knowledge has been accessible to the GoU for as long as one can remember.
The non-response has always been blamed on the fact that since the early 1990s the GoU liberalised the economy. This, the excuse further proffers, makes any intervention from the GoU that much difficult. It has taken the editable deaths of pupils whilst on a school trip for the GoU to have a change of tack.
Even then, no one is holding their breath. Many, in fact, are convinced that responsible authorities will do no more than paper over cracks since they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. We can only hope that the doubting Thomases will be left eating humble pie.
If this turns out to be the case, it will no doubt be a win-win. For now, it remains on a slippery slope. Much like the one at Chekwatit Hill.