MASAKA, Uganda – The Catholic Diocese of Masaka has banned school visitations on Sundays, a move aimed at promoting spiritual growth among faithful.
According to Father Michael Kamulegeya, the diocese’s education secretary, a large number of Christian parents spend much of their Sunday time preparing to visit their children in boarding schools, resulting in missed Sunday Masses.
“Parents with children in boarding schools spend Sundays moving to schools to visit them. When the new school term opens, many parents prefer to use Sunday to take their children back to school,” Father Kamulegeya said.
“This has to change. Under our new policy, all diocesan schools should open for the new term on Mondays, not Sundays as provided for by the Ministry of Education, and those that feel like they cannot manage to use Mondays, should resort to Saturdays,” he added.
The diocese has also instructed its schools to continue teaching Christian Religious Education (CRE) despite its removal from the national curriculum.
“The new Lower Secondary Curriculum removed CRE from subjects examined, but the Episcopal Conference resolved that CRE should continue to be taught in our schools and we shall follow that,” Father Kamulegeya said.
The Masaka Diocesan Inspector of Schools, Father Francis Xavier Lubega, called upon proprietors of private schools to always listen to learners’ concerns to avoid unnecessary strikes.
“Though the ideas and concerns of students may sound childish, they should always be heard and handled because those are the issues that affect them and may force them to become unruly,” Father Lubega said.
He advised school proprietors to use available measures such as suggestion boxes, prefects’ bodies, or class teachers’ meetings to get students’ concerns and address them in time.
Some schools in the diocese have already begun implementing the new policy. Jude Kayiwa, the head teacher of Uganda Martyr Primary School, Katwe, said they have chosen Saturday as their visitation day.
“Since it was the first time to receive pupils on a Saturday, it inconvenienced us as a school, we had to receive pupils for three days instead of the usual two days,” Kayiwa said.
Josephine Nanfuka, a teacher at Archbishop Kiwanuka Secondary School, Kitovu, welcomed the decision, saying it will also give teachers a chance to attend Sunday Mass.
“As a school, we had already decided to shift visitation days to Saturday after realizing that our teachers would get so tired during Sundays and at times end up missing classes on Monday,” Nanfuka said.
