Kidepo Valley County Commissioner in Torit State, Lokeng Peter Lotone on Wednesday confirmed that five schools were closed due to severe hunger in the area.
Lokeng says hunger in the area has forced some teachers to go to the neighbouring countries in search of work.
Education system in the county has become low due to lack of qualified teachers in the area, he regrets.
‘Education is going on well although there are some areas where education is not going well due to some teachers who were deployed there and paid by the government managed to escape from the learning areas where they were. Some of them have gone to the neighbouring countries due to hunger some of the schools are closed, Commissioner Lokeng reveals.
‘Some of the schools which were closed they are like five those which are closed from Kidepo Valley County and these are some of the areas we are saying education is low because there is no teachers to give education to the pupils’, he stresses.
Commissioner Lokeng also confirms that there is excessive consumption of alcohol that drive some teachers out of the profession.
Lokeng urges the government to intervene and consider the volunteers by putting them in the pay roll system so as to boost the education sector.
He reveals his plan to revisit affected schools in the area for intervention.
‘Next year we want the communities whose five schools have been closed we want to go there so that we can go from school to school to talk to them so that they bring the children back to school and also we want request to the government, the volunteers who want to help, we want them to look for other ways so that they can be put in payroll so that they can be able to help in schools, says the commissioner.
He adds that ‘we need to kill insecurity through education, actually that’s why we have plans for the coming year that schools which have influence of alcoholism especially their teachers who want to make some changes to them; we can bring them near the headquarters so that they can be near their principals’.
The speaker made the remarks on Wednesday while speaking on a talk show on Radio Emmanuel in Torit.