The Ministry of Education and Sports

That said, 775 schools reported suspected cases to the ministries of education and health, both ministries then quickly sent medical teams which screened 470,910 individuals in the seemingly affected schools.

The school surveillance report was released nine days after schools across the country reopened after almost two years of there being no physical classes. Schools were closed off to in-person learners due to a lockdown as a result of Covid-19.

The closure of countrywide education institutions commenced in June 2020 to curb the spread of Covid-19 following the assurgent cases of the Delta variant of the virus.

On January 6, 2022, the Ministry of Health in a letter to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Sports suspended the precondition of learners having to undergo mandatory Covid-19 testing before being allowed onto school premises.

A few days after that day, there was a surge in Covid-19 cases registered in the country.

There was a steady increase of Covid-19 cases from December 29 2021, with over 1600 new cases of Covid-19 taking the number of cases to about 140 700 cases since the start of the pandemic, at the time.

Then the results suddenly spiked with Covid-19 tests confirming more than 1,700 new cases to take the total to over 160,000 cases since the pandemic began.

This prompted school owners to ask parents to ensure that learners appear with negative PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test results taken at least 72 hours before the day the learner reported back to school.

Then there was the additional requirement concerning some school owners asking parents to take tests at pre-positioned private laboratories upon arrival at the schools they attended.

This led to parents complaining, some saying the tests could be manipulated to suit the schools’ particular interests.

Thereupon, the Director General of Health Services Dr Henry Mwebesa wrote to the education ministry asking for it to intervene and officially suspend the requirement of tests from learners countrywide. His position was that such a precondition was not part of the national school reopening requirements put in place by the national Covid-19 task force.

Director General of Health Services Dr Henry Mwebesa Pulse Live Uganda

“The national Covid-19 task force guidelines for reopening of schools, jointly developed by the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Health, provides specific guidance on how learners will safely return to schools. Testing learners on arrival was not one of the recommendations,” Mwebesa pointed out in his letter.

Mwebesa said that every school was tasked to institute systems for the strict compliance to Covid-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and thereby ensuring that a failsafe was in place in the shape of eagle-eyed surveillance systems deployed by each school.

A directive was thus put in place which halted testing as a precondition for learners to return to school.

Ismael Mulindwa, the Director of Basic Education, said there would be a harsh penalty imposed upon those who transgressed this directive by forcibly testing learners as a requirement for them to return to school.