Since we’re still ages away from having very many families that can afford to educate their own children at university, Christ School depend heavily on the quota system to continue the education of our O/B’s and O/G’s (alumni) past the secondary level. Fortunately Uganda’s Ministry of Education is looking at changing the quota system to help poor and poor-performing districts such as Bundibugyo. Right now merit quota are distributed based on academic qualifications, with most qualifiers being from Kampala and several other wealthy districts. Hard for our students to compete with those whose parents can afford a much lower teacher to student ration and far better facilities and books. In future, we hear that while the merit quota spots will still most likely stay in the hands of wealthy districts, we in Bundibugyo can expect to get a greater percentage of the need-based quota spots, to make up for our lack of merit.

We want to just be successful any way you look at it but for now we’ll take what we can get. Bundibugyo is one of the last-performing districts in Uganda for education. A place where girl-children are routinely pulled from secondary schools to be given in early marriage ( a much better financial deal for the parents; they make money on the dowry rather than shelling it out on the fees!). Quota helps our students immensely – and we pray for many of our students to be among those scoring well enough to qualify.