This archive report was first published on 11 January 2022.
On January 10, 2022, Uganda's Education Minister John Muyingo announced that all students would automatically resume classes a year above where they left off, as the country reopened its classrooms after nearly two years of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Muyingo, all schools have implemented guidelines and standard operating procedures to ensure the safe return of children to schools, and measures have been put in place to ensure those who don’t comply do so.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had lifted the bulk of COVID-19-related restrictions in the country in September 2021, but he left schools shuttered. However, in October 2021, he announced that schools would reopen early next year regardless of the vaccination uptake, which is currently low.
As students returned to school, the rush to get back to class clogged traffic in the capital Kampala on Monday, January 10, 2022.
Child rights groups had criticised Uganda’s decision to keep schools fully or partially shuttered for 83 weeks, longer than anywhere else in the world.
Uganda has recorded 153,762 cases of COVID-19 and 3,339 deaths, according to the latest government figures issued on January 7, 2022.
Despite President Museveni stating that “right now 4.7 million vaccines” are available with a further 23 million doses expected by the end of the year, Ugandans have shown reluctance to get jabbed so far.
Students who took up manual jobs to support their families through the pandemic may not return to education, while others worry they may never catch up on the school work they have missed.
