In Chua East County, Kitgum District, the school term and the farming calendar are on a collision course. As the first rains arrive in April, parents are loading hoes, oxen, ox-ploughs, and children, among others, onto any carrier and heading close to 50-80 kilometers into wilderness farmland. By the time the crops are harvested, weeks of lessons have been lost.
For many families, it is not a choice between education and farming. It is a choice between eating and learning.
These key farming sites, which are mostly in Namokora North Sub-county, are where children end up working: Lipan, Abunai, Bur Anyeri, Tee Biko, Pii Peke, Tee Agulu/Apoka, Labu Yin, and Ogeng Koyo, among others.
“The rains don’t wait”
Markson Otema Obonyo, a father of two boys from Namokora Sub-county, puts it plainly: “If we don’t plant when the first rain comes, we lose the whole season. I need my sons to help clear the land and plant since I don’t have oxen or machinery to help me with cultivation. School can wait, but the planting season won’t.”
Obonyo says his sons learn skills on the farm that school does not teach. “He learns how to survive. How to dig, how to know when maize is ready, how to sell at market. In school, they teach English, but on the farm he learns how to feed his family.”
“Fees, uniform, books. And labor,” Obonyo explains. “During weeding and harvesting, if my child is not here, I must hire someone. Where will I get that money?”
He argues that the school calendar itself works against farmers. “April to June is planting time, and school is open. August is weeding time, and school is open. The school calendar doesn’t follow the farming calendar.”
Not all children migrate. Evaline Alwoch Odoki, a mother of six from Orom East Sub-county, leaves her 15-year-old daughter at home to care for younger siblings while she and her husband work the farmland.
“I and my husband are alone. The children are in our hands. If my daughter is at school, who will help me weed? The grass grows fast, and if we delay, the crops fail,” Odoki says.
The girl now cooks, fetches water, and manages the household. “I’m now the mother,” she says. “I used to go to school every day. Now I stay home. The house is quiet, but my head is always busy.”
“The hardest thing is watching my little brother ask me to help him with homework, and I don’t know the answer anymore because I’ve been out too long.”
For children who go to the farm, the loss is also stark. A 16-year-old pupil of Ogul Primary School now spends his days digging from 6 a.m. until sunset in the Lipan wilderness.
“Back home, there was school, friends, and football after class. Here, there is no school, no other boys my age. Just work, eat, sleep, and repeat,” he says. “The hardest part is feeling like my brain is getting empty. I used to be good at math. Now I forget things because I don’t use them.”
Both parents say hunger forces their hand. Odoki recounts paying school fees for one term and then going two weeks on one meal a day. “This term, I said ‘no’. We will eat first and then see about school,” he says.
Obonyo agrees: “A child can repeat a class, but he cannot come back if hunger kills him.”
Both say they would send their children if schooling were truly free and included meals. Odoki adds that children feel ashamed when they sit in class hungry while others eat lunch at school.
Grace Auma, female councillor for Orom East Sub-county, says the crisis is worsened when entire families migrate to farmland.
“Most of the time when people are going to the farmland, they take everyone with them without leaving anyone behind,” Auma explained.
She said the situation escalates when learners are sent home for unpaid fees, such as Parent-Teacher Association contributions.
“Because the parents would not mind bringing the child back to school, they instead take them straight to the farmland for cultivation,” she added.
Auma called on school administrations and management committees to alert stakeholders early.
“They must always inform other stakeholders about the situation at their respective schools to make sure that these learners are not taken to farmland, but remain in school,” she urged
According to Auma, three out of five schools in Orom East Sub-county are badly affected: Kwarayo Okuti Primary School, Lodum Oyere Primary School, and Lucom Primary School.
Classrooms go empty
The crisis hits schools directly. Nola Adiya, Head-teacher of Ogul Primary School in Namokora North Sub-county, one of the worst affected, says the situation always worsens in Term Two, June to August, which coincides with the second planting season.
“Those parents who somehow think about education bring back their children, but they walk over 20 kilometers daily from the farmland to school, and mostly only for examinations. This leads to poor performance,” Adiyo said.
She said enrollment at Ogul, which has about 227 learners on paper, becomes unstable. “Sometimes the school ends up with fewer than 30 pupils, especially when learners are sent back home for the Shs 10,000 Parents Teachers Association payment.”
A class teacher at Ogul who prefers anonymity added: “Sometimes my classroom ends up empty with no learners, and that is mostly in the second term. There is no consistency. Sometimes the numbers shoot up, while on a bad day the number drops completely to no pupils, despite us having enough teachers to handle them.”
Patrick Ochola Acac, head teacher of Namokora Primary School in Namokora Town Council, one of the largest schools in Chua East with over 1,400 learners, says his school is not spared.
“By the week of the new term, Second Term, only about 700 were at school,” he said. “I expect the number to keep fluctuating since the planting season has begun because most learners, especially those in upper classes, will be withdrawn and taken to the farmlands.”
To lock learners in, Namokora Primary made P6 and P7 boarding. But even that is struggling. “Out of 116 Primary Seven candidates registered for PLE, only 48 have reported since the second term began,” Ochola said.
He blamed resistance from parents who are not responding to bring food in kind, like maize, sorghum, beans, or peas, to feed the boarders as agreed by them.
Anthony Lawot Lam, Kitgum District Education Officer, estimates that over 3,000 learners are stuck yearly in farmland doing cultivation as parents use them for labour.
“All schools in Chua East Constituency are affected, especially those in Omiya Anyima, Mucwini, Kiteny, Namokora North, Omiya Anyima West, Namokora Town Council, and Mucwini West Sub-county,” Lawot said.
He said several efforts by the education department to convince parents have not yielded results, despite district education ordinances that penalise parents who keep children out of school.
“The only way to address this is to have all stakeholders on board to address these challenges and ensure these children are released from the farmland,” he said.
Kitgum District Chairperson Tolit Tony Blair Olanya says the practice violates the Education Act. “Section 6, subsection 2, it is the responsibility of the parents… However, if you opt to take your child to the garden instead of taking the child to school, that violates the child’s rights. And that law can take.”
He says LC1 leaders have been instructed to act. “For these stubborn parents who will not be sending their child to school, of course, the law has to take its course; we shall cause an arrest to that effect.”
But children on the ground are asking for something different. The 16-year-old boy says he still hopes to return to class if a school were built near the farmland or if he could live with relatives in town. “What I need most is a book, or someone to teach me, or a chance to sit in a classroom again. I don’t want to forget everything.”
His 15-year-old counterpart says she would go back tomorrow if someone could care for her siblings. “I also need someone to tell me I haven’t been forgotten.”
A calendar out of step
Parents across Chua East describe the same conflict: harvest and weeding seasons fall within school terms. By the time children return to class, crops have rotted or been stolen.
Odoki suggests a practical adjustment: “If school gave a holiday during harvest, it would be better.”
Dr Cleophus Mugenyi, Commissioner for Basic Education at the Ministry of Education, explains that parents’ attitudes must change because as children grow older, they are increasingly seen as a source of labour and money instead of learners.
He condemns taking children to the garden instead of school. He notes that the two government programs—Uganda Primary Education and Uganda Secondary Education—exist so children can gain skills, adding that the Children’s Act clearly outlines the need to protect children’s rights at school.
Dr Mugenyi reiterated that parents who send their children to the garden instead of school should be arrested. “This should be done after warning them, and they could have played a deaf ear to warnings so that they understand the importance of taking these children to school, other than the farmland,” he said.
He stresses that each stakeholder must play their part in enforcing UPE guidelines, which require that every school-age child be in school.
Dr Charles Tonny Mukasa Lusambu, retired Commissioner for Basic Education, MoES, says automatic promotion has worsened the situation because most parents are sure that there children will be promoted to the next class even if do their end-of-term exams.
“The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) designs the curriculum so every school day has content to cover, and Ministry of Education requires a minimum of about 6-7 attendance days per term,” he reveals.
“Learners who miss Term 2 for farmland work fall below this threshold and must repeat the class, because missing that content affects performance and drags district + national results down.”
He urged schools to keep proper registers, sensitize parents with attendance records, and then enforce repetition as the first step.
Last year, Kitgum registered 3,926 pupils who sat for Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), but 835 candidates either skipped exams or failed.
This story was done with grant support from NUMEC. It was initially published by the Upland Media.
