| KAMPALA
Boys and girls in Karamoja are shunning school in preference for cattle keeping and preparation for marriage respectively.
District Education Officer Paul Abul said even with the availability of universal primary education at no cost, school dropout rate in the region is high.
Abul was presenting a paper on key challenges of education in Karamoja region at the third Annual Education Sector Review in Kampala on Thursday.
He said Karimojong children resent formal education for mainly cultural reasons.
According to him, Karimojong boys who have stayed in school are considered cowards, the reason they are withdrawn from school at primary levels before they are indoctrinated against the Karimojong lifestyle.
He said the girl child is kept home to help in domestic chores and also prepare for marriage in a cultural way, which makes her fetch a high bride price, usually up to 60 head of cattle.
"Girls who go to school are considered spoilt,
promiscuous and of low bride price value. So they better not go to school and if they do, they must be withdrawn at an early age,'' Abul explained.
He said owing to the cultural inclination, most children spend time engaging in non-school activities like herding cattle. He said some children are dropping out as early as primary two.
"The dropout rate reaches critically high levels in primary six and seven. The intake rate at primary one level is just 22 per cent, leaving 78 per cent of school-going age children out of school,'' Abul said.
He said this has continuously lowered the completion rate of primary seven in Moroto district to just 10 per cent currently. Abul said the Karimojong view formal education as a long-term investment yet their traditional education yields immediately.
"They [Karimojong], therefore, view education as a means of interfering with their lifestyle, an attitude we are fighting," he says.
Ms Florence Talamoe,
the headmistress of Kasimeri Primary School, concurs with Abul.
She said parents need to be sensitised on their role in their children's education other than clinging onto their negative attitudes towards education.
Talamoe said school enrolment and attendance would have been even lower without the boost by the World Food Programme (WFP). She said WFP gives incentives in form of food rations to pupils who attend at least 80 per cent of school days in a term.
Talamoe said the Alternative Basic Education for Karamoja (Abek), an informal education training programme has also helped get 15,011 people enrolled in 128 learning centres.
Abek, which was started in 1998, aims at changing the Karimojong community's attitude towards education by sending children back to school.
Abul said since the inception of Abek, about 3,000 learners have crossed to formal primary schools, boosting enrolment levels. | 
