Chaotic Total Scholarships and Why the Oil-Rich Buliisa District Deserves More Than Peanuts

Op-Ed: Over the weekend, a young girl who got eleven aggregates and was denied a TotalEnergies E&P Uganda (TEPU) scholarship on grounds that her father owns a permanent house came to buy scholastic materials at my local bookshop in Biiso Town.

I understand that she has been enrolled by her parents at a local school in Biiso. Her other friend, with whom they attended the same school and got twelve aggregates but were selected on poverty advantage when she was found at a home with a grass-thatched house, is at St. Andrea Kahwa’s College, TEPU’s partner school in Hoima Town.

According to TEPU’s website, these scholarships are merit-based, and the primary eligibility criteria are the candidate’s academic performance in the primary leaving examinations.

TEPU is the licensed operator of the Tilenga Project, located in Buliisa and Nwoya districts. It awards ten scholarships every year under their girls’ empowerment program as part of their cooperative social responsibility since 2013.

This year, there has been a lot of noise about the selection criteria of these scholarships, as ‘wanaichi’ demanded to know whether poverty levels are the new primary criteria for the TEPU scholarship selection and if iron sheet roofs symbolize wealthy living in Uganda.

TEPU has constructed some permanent houses for the Tilenga Project Affected Persons (PAPs). Most of these people were found in grass-thatched houses. One wonders if TEPU would leave out a child of a PAP who has performed better but is living in a permanent house they constructed for her family.

In an escalation, there is a fear that after houses, the criteria may extend to the type of food people eat in their homes, and locals are already discussing the type of food that qualifies one in the league of the poorest of the nation.

By the time of this article, citizen investigations had reported that some parents of the children who benefited from the scholarship this year were civil servants, including a scientist and a subcounty chief who owns two permanent houses. Such contradictions in the awarding of these scholarships are not news at all.

In the past, there have been cases where children from well-to-do families studying in big schools outside the district would be registered to do exams in Buliisa and beat our locally made learners to benefit from this scholarship scheme.

Whereas I may agree from a humane perspective that standards of living can be added as criteria, it must not compromise the primary criteria, which are academic performance.

It would definitely make sense if used in the case where two candidates have the same scores and are competing for a single slot. Anyway, if I were asked to give my opinion on this scholarship program, my view would be that it should be abandoned with immediate effect. These scholarships are not only becoming subjective but also do not reflect the intention to promote education as a right for all children in Buliisa.

On the contrary, what is being done is a brain drain. None of TEPU’s partner schools are located in Buliisa. Our best performers are taken to schools outside the district. The reason why Buliisa is always ranked among the worst-performing districts every year during O’level national examination rankings.

Regrettably, by draining our cream, TEPU promotes the notion that schools in Buliisa are incompetent to teach children and help them succeed in life. TEPU should learn from Tullow Oil Uganda, which constructed Buliisa General Hospital.

They invest in our local schools in Buliisa instead of draining our cream. The success of every child is a shared responsibility and must not be dependent on gender, grades, financial background, or place of birth.

The author is Nelson Byaruhanga, an indigenous writer. E-mail: nlsnmicheal90.mnb@gmail.com

Disclaimer: As UG Reports Media LTD, we welcome any opinion from anyone if it’s constructive for the development of Uganda. All the expressions and opinions in this write-up are not those of UG Reports Media Ltd. but of the author of the article.

Would you like to share your opinion with us? Please send it to this email: theugreports@gmail.com.