The Fatboy Show host James Onen, aka Fatboy, implored the Minister of Education and Sports Janet Kataaha Museveni to account for the increased illiteracy levels among school children in Northern Uganda.
In a new report, research by the Foundation for Inclusive Community Help (FICH) and Grassroots nest for Innovations and Change (GRIC) established that 69 percent of primary 3 pupils cannot recognize alphabets even if they spent 30 minutes staring at them.
The study was carried out in the districts of Oyam, Lira, Kole, and Arua. It was dubbed ‘Assessing quality, access, and capacity of grassroots organizations in improving learning outcomes in districts. The same study found that the learners couldn't read or identify words in local languages such as Luo, Kiswahili, Kakwa, Lugbarati, and Aringa.
Disturbed by the discoveries, Fatboy called upon the Minister of Education to address the situation that has gone out of hand.
“Under these circumstances, the Minister of Education needs to come up and offer an explanation because if these were results found in any other country in the world, that Minister would have resigned because this is proof of inefficiency and of failure,” he stated.
According to Fatboy, despite other factors that might have contributed to the situation such as the Covid 19 induced lockdown on schools, the competence of teachers, and the educational curriculum, as her co-host had argued, such a predicament would be treated with strong concern in any other country.
He said that in “any sane country, the head of government would be demanding for your resignation or outright firing the Minister.”
The same research revealed a further spike in the percentage of children who cannot read and recognize letters of the alphabet from 40.5 percent in 2018 to 55 percent in 2021.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy, Olive, and Sarah every weekday from 6 am to 10 am on RX Radio.