By Micheal Bitunga
240 grandaunts of Taremwa College Kabwohe in Sheema district went on strike on Friday, on the day of their graduation!
The graduation ceremony that started colourfully with merry making ended in serious demonstration commanded by parents and their grandaunts, against the school administrators such as the Principal Mr. Abaho who was later caged at Kabwohe Police station.
The demonstration came after the school failed to give academic documents to the grandaunts to help them out in the fields of job applications. It is said that since 2015 no student has ever got their certificate nor provisional results slip.
The angry students said that wherever they applied for a job, they were asked to present their academic documents from the institution which they have never got even when they were asked to pay UGX 50000 for the certificates.
“Are we going to use these gowns when applying for jobs? Why did you call us to graduate if you knew that you didn’t have our certificates? You have been stealing us but today enough is enough,” the angry parents and students charged.
Rev. Elisam B Bampata Chairman board of directors tried to defend the school but instead put it in hell when he said that some student didn’t qualify for the certificates because they failed external exams. When Bampata was asked as to why the school didn’t inform them for retakes, he replied angrily that local parents take long to understand, this escalated the situation more.
By the time we left the school at around 6:30 pm, students who are still studying from there were also demanding the school to either give them some money on the school profits or they leave the school to other institutions.
This is not the first time Taremwa College school is facing such problems, in 2016 it was dragged to the ministry of Education and Sports for failure to release examination results and certificates.
