After almost 2 years of schools being closed, the institutions finally opened to learners across the country as directed by President Museveni in his national address on 31st December.
These are also expected to receive pregnant learners and breastfeeding teenage mothers who conceived and gave birth during the lockdown.
However, the notion of allowing pregnant girls and those breastfeeding was met without contention.
On Saturday, the Mukono diocese Bishop James Ssebagala asked teachers at Church of Uganda schools to prohibit pregnant girls from attending classes since it would not be morally upright to allow them to sit with other learners in class.
While giving her thoughts on this, The Fatboy Show Presenter Olive Najjuma commented otherwise, saying pregnant girls should be left to attend school since even the Government agrees that some of its policies induced the situation. However, she noted that some parents too neglected their parenting roles which contributed to early pregnancies.
“To a degree, parents share the blame because when your children are moving out and about, it means that there are some things you've failed to instill in them that would impart some degree of fear.”
She continued, “Because there are many girls that did not get pregnant yet their parents might have left them by themselves at home during the lockdown. So to a degree, parents partly failed with their responsibilities like the First Lady said. However, to a larger extent, it's the Government and the policies they put in place.”
James Onen aka Fatboy, the show’s Co-host, wondered whether the boys that got these girls pregnant would also be blocked from attending school.
However, he was more curious of how Olive’s children reacted to going back to school after the long lockdown.
Olive in response said, “I took my daughters to school on Monday and none of them cried, or showed that they missed me, can you imagine? I stood there for sometime and most of the children who were being dropped off were just saying, ‘bye mummy, bye daddy!’ So, clearly they were tired of us already!”
Nevertheless, she stated that even though the President directed schools not to increase fees, they instead resorted to asking for fees ‘top ups’ without any communication that the dues would eventually be reversed to their previous structure.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy, Olive, Sarah and Lesham every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio.
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