Ugandan opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye has punched holes in a move by First Lady Janet Museveni’s Ministry of Education and Sports to close the third term of the current academic calendar two weeks earlier as a way of preventing the spread of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in education institutions.
Learners will have to wait for more than two weeks from this week’s early closure announcement made by Dr Joyce Moriku Kaducu, the State Minister of Primary Education, on behalf of Janet Museveni.
In his interaction with reporters at the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) office at Najjanankumbi in Kampala, Besigye wondered why the Ministries of Education and Health think Ebola will not spread in schools during the weeks before the early closure of schools.
“It is ridiculous to say that Ebola is spreading in schools but you only close them on November 25. So, what is happening between now and November 25? Are you saying there is no spread of Ebola?” wondered Dr Besigye, a professional medical doctor whose role in the National Resistance Army (NRA) bush war was to treat injured combatants and also worked as commander Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s personal physician.
From his expertise in the health world, Besigye feels that the Ministry of Health and its partners would find it easier to contain the spread of Ebola Virus Disease in a regulated school environment as opposed to sending millions of learners into communities.
Besigye further claimed that the early closure of schools had nothing to do with the Ebola outbreak since the panic mode activated has not been followed by a swift action but rather a delay by more than a fortnight between the announcement and the actual closure.
Besigye suspects that government wants to use the money that should be going to schools to do other things. For Besigye, the early closure of schools has everything to do with rhe the ongoing economic crisis and not the Ebola outbreak.
The opposition leader has now urged parents to reject the move by government to close schools earlier than had been scheduled, saying it their children who will miss out. It should be remembered that Ugandan school children had missed about two years of learning due to the Covid19 pandemic and its lockdown.
Janet Museveni’s Education Ministry has already announced the official date when all schools will be closed over Ebola. At least eight children have died of Ebola. (See Details Here and There).
