It’s been some time since we were able to update you on Kafuro Primary School, but Mr Stanley has spoken to Mr Thembo over the past week and we now have plenty of news.
Firstly, pupils returned to school on January 10th after nearly two years without any school attendance. The only pupils who have attended were last year’s P7 who returned for a brief time before their PLE (Primary Leaving Examinations). One of the questions that the children at Liss have asked regularly has been about the learning that children have had at home. It has been explained to them that the pupils have had no access to remote learning – no one has laptops, and although there is internet in the area it is 3G and very slow. The school has been unable to send workpacks either as they do not have a photocopier – some secondary schools have access to them but primary do not. Consequently, the pupils have had almost two years of lost learning. This places what has happened to education in the UK into a bit more context.
Another frustration for the staff and pupils in Kafuro is that Covid cases have been virtually non – existent. The remoteness of the community has obviously been a positive factor in this, but the school has been unable to open because of government rules.
The teaching staff underwent training similar to that in the UK about how to reintegrate the pupils back into school and to recover lost learning. Initially, attendance was very poor, but has picked up quickly and Mr Thembo said it was currently at about 98%.
Regular readers of the blog will be aware that one of the projects based around our last round of Connecting Classrooms funding was building an African Keyhole Garden. As you can see from the photos below, ground has been prepared in two areas around the school but nothing has been planted yet as the weather is so hot at the moment that straw has been spread out over the surface in order to stop moisture from evaporating. Mr Thembo said that they have planted banana suckers (these will grow into teees) in different parts of the school campus as banan trees are highly drought resistant.
March 18th update: Mr Thembo has been in touch to say that the children at Kafuro have been planting water melons – not something we could realistically grow at Liss. Mr Thembo said that the seedlings have to be heavily watered at the beginning and the end of the day because it is so hot in Uganda at the moment that if they were to water in the middle of the day the water would just evaporate. They are also planting some cabbage seeds which is more like the crops we would grow in the UK.
Banana Suckers 
The area marked out for the keyhole garden 
Staff Training 
Children preparing the ground 
Planting seedlings 
The seedlings need lots of water 
Queen Elizabeth Parks Project Schools' Blog 