CIBITOKE, March 26th (ABP) – The Education Workers’ Union (STEB) launched that Friday, 21 March 2025, at the headquarters of the Ndava zone, Buganda commune, in Cibitoke province, the project to combat child labour, so that every child can attend school.
The project comes at a time when the adviser in charge of statistics at the DCE Buganda has revealed that at least 863 pupils, comprising 402 girls and 461 boys, have already dropped out of school during the 2024-2025 school year.
The president of the STEB union, Rémy Nsengiyumva, pointed out that the aim of the project is to ensure that every child of school age attends school. The same official pointed out that after the launch, next week will be reserved for a field study in the Ndava zone to find out how many children of school age are not currently at school.
The following week will be devoted to raising awareness among parents, pupils and teachers, so that they know that the place reserved for children is not in domestic work, but rather at school.
The president of STEB said that with his organisation’s usual technique, he hoped to bring back the bulk of schoolchildren who had dropped out. He explained that that project has brought back many pupils in the Rukaramu zone, Bujumbura province, where after 4 years of implementation, 600 pupils out of 900 who had dropped out have been able to return to school. Similarly, in the Gihanga zone, where after one year of project activities, STEB has brought back 400 pupils out of the 1,600 who had dropped out of school.
Among the causes of school dropouts are the negligence of parents, the ignorance of children, and the selfishness of certain employers who want to use them at lower cost and for their own benefit. Children who drop out of school are employed in field work, household chores, the marketing of eggs and particularly in the extraction of minerals and the sale of fraudulent fuel.
The STEB union welcomes the government’s efforts, and calls for the enactment of a law to punish those who use under-age children to work while their own children are at school, and to prevent interference with initiatives to get all children back to school.