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Article

22 Aug 2016

Author:
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social & Cultural Rights (USA)

Uganda: Govt. to close Bridge International Academies schools over education quality & sanitation concerns

"Uganda to close the largest chain of commercial private schools over non-respect of basic education standards"

The Ugandan Minister of Education and Sports, Hon Janet Museveni, formally announced...that the Government will soon close the schools operated by the largest and most controversial chain of commercial private schools worldwide, Bridge International Academies (BIA), which runs 63 nursery and primary schools in Uganda. Hon Museveni indicated having based her decision on technical reports..that revealed that the schools did not respect national standards, in particular that “material used could not promote teacher pupil interaction” and that “poor hygiene and sanitation […] put the life and safety of the school children in danger”.

“This decision, which is backed up by field visits of Ministry officials, confirms the grave concerns we have had about Bridge,” reacted Salima Namusobya, the Executive Director of the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), a Ugandan NGO monitoring the realisation of the right to education in the country.  “We have long been worried that BIA schools did not respect the Government Guidelines on Basic Requirements and Minimum Standards for Schools for example regarding infrastructure, purposefully used unqualified teachers in order to reduce costs, in violations of Ugandan laws, and were developing a massive for-profit business without the agreement and proper oversight of the authorities.”

Bridge International Academies is a for-profit commercial chain of low-cost private schools backed up by investors such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Pierre Omidyar (eBay), as well as the World Bank, and the US and British Governments. It aims at providing education to 10 million pupils by 2025 and already runs over 450 schools in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and soon Liberia and India.