Okeny looked up at the imposing gates of the vaunted high school, took a deep breath and stepped forward. He politely asked the gateman if he could enter, but was refused.

“Good morning sir, I’m trying to get admission to your high school…”

Gateman: “The admission form costs 50,000 shillings – and you’ll have to pick it up from Holy Rosary church (on the other side of town)

Okeny headed home wondering how on earth he could afford even the mere admission form to the next stage of his life. He had already overcome the odds to have even a chance of reaching high school. From age 5 to 9 he was in and out of school, his single mother selling second hand clothes at the market to raise what school fees she could. From age 9 Okeny started coming to our weekly class, and a generous sponsor helped him attend school every day. Behind by over 2 years, he not only caught up but achieved what I thought impossible – a first grade in his final primary exams, a mark achieved by under 10% of Ugandan students. I wasn’t just impressed but shocked as I never expected him to do quite that well, given all the struggles he had already overcome.

After all that success, without more help he couldn’t even get an admission form for high school.

And that’s barely the beginning of the challenges that kids like Okeny face in their education…

Here are three surprising hurdles which many kids struggle to overcome to complete school in low income countries like Uganda. Much of this material comes from a wonderful in depth article

Hurdle 1. Most kids don’t learn while at school

Since the 90s there has been a successful push to get every kid to primary school in low income countries. But this push had a price as up to 80% of kids in Sub-saharan Africa sit quietly in class while they learn next to nothing. After finishing school, they can’t even read or do basic math. Reasons for this failure include absent teachers, absent students and even teachers not understanding what they are supposed to be teaching. Rwanda’s own ministry of education assessed that only 4% of their teachers had sufficient English proficiency to teach their students well. We see this heartbreak all the time. Most 10 to 13 year old kids here in Gulu have already been to school for 3-5 years, yet when they first come to read with us they can’t manage to read “The cat is on the mat”.

This “learning crisis”  sometimes makes me feel ill. The poorest mums in the world spend their few hard-earned pennies to send their kids to school for 8 hours a day for years on end, while most of them learn net to nothing. Thousands of hours and dollars wasted for what?

Okeny was fortunate, he managed to actually learn for most of the time he was in school – but was nearly stopped in his tracks at hurdle number two. 

Hurdle 2. Impossible cost of high school

Primary school fees are tough enough but even if your parents pay the fees, and you learn enough to complete primary school, high school fees are impossible for most people, often 10x more expensive than primary school. The school where we send Okeny Is a government funded high school, yet costs about $250 US for a 4 month term. This is despite all the teachers and most equipment is paid for by the government – one. Our junior nurses earn about $120 monthly – this means they would have to spend half their entire annual salary to send just one of their kids to high school. And our nurses are fortunate compared to most Ugandans. Some reports show that half of Ugandans earn under 55 dollars a month, which means that their entire income couldn’t even send one of their kids to high school – an impossible situation

Hurdle 3. Inhumane teaching hours

Jessica* joked that she and her friends found sneaky ways to sleep during “prep time”, like holding their pens out in front of them. To stay awake all day was pgysically impossible when you were forced to only sleep for 5 hours at night. I struggled to believe that the school only gave them 5 hours to sleep, but here’s a copy of Okeny’s official school schedule to prove this horrible situation. Some schools are even more extreme…

The sleep deprivation at Ugandan high schools borders on child abuse. Kids have to do homework at night often until 11pm, then get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to start prepping for class.

Yes that’s right, only 5 or 6 hours sleep in a night scheduled. In contrast the American Center for Disease Control (and other professional bodies) recommend 8 to 10 hours sleep a night for teenagers. Not only will they be continually tired, unable to learn and remember material as well, this is a mental health risk.

CDC: “Children and adolescents who do not get enough sleep have a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, injuries, poor mental health, and problems with attention and behavior.”

And this hurdle list is far from exhaustive – I just picked 3 that stood out to me. In many ways it’s a miracle that so many kids somehow manage to wade through this mire achieve literacy or better.

Good news for Okeny and a shameless ask

We helped Okeny get the admission forms, and he has started high school. Unlike many he’s fortunate enough to have generous sponsors to remove at least one hurdle from the road. And now for our shameless ask. With the help of generous sponsors we help some of the poorest kids from our neighbourhood with school fees. As some of them graduate to high school and beyond (fantastic news!) costs increase (see above), so we are looking for some more generous people to help them on their education journey. If you might be interested in helping flick me an e-mail or message through the blog ;).