By Andrew Irumba
Following allegations that have been making rounds that Kololo based Lohana Academy has been allegedly mistreating a section of its pupils while favoring the other, the management has come out to refute them as simply malicious, misguided and unfortunate allegations.
On Monday afternoon, our reporter Andrew Irumba sat with the school’s principal Mr.Bharat Manek and in a 45minute exclusive interview, he clarified that such a thing has never happened and it will never happen at least not under his administration.
“Lohana schools started in 1995, we have undisputable track records in all spheres of child development mentally, socially, emotionally and Education wise. It’s unfortunate that someone,who I believe is not even our pupil (because we don’t even have such a name in our records) could talk like that about us,” Bharat wondered.
Over the week end, a writer claiming to be a pupil at Lohana Academy claimed that the school administration mistreats Ugandan pupils and favors Indians by allowing Indian parents pack food for their children but deny Ugandan pupils the same privilege. However, Bharat disputed this and said it was only meant to put the school in bad light for ulterior motives.
“Let me tell you my brother something the public may not know, we have 1497 pupils here, 97% of those are Ugandans and those from neighbouring countries,only 3% are non-Ugandans. Secondly, we have 82 teaching staff and 15 support staff, we all eat the same food cooked here, including the cleaners,we all eat the same food; now how can we eat half cooked food at my age as you see me?”He wondered. He went ahead to to explain that it is not possible for such acts as alleged by Tisha to happen because all the teachers are Ugandans and the pupils are like their own children.
About Tisha’s allegations of corporal punishments, he said it was not possible because they’re very much against corporal punishment.
“Our school rules, Ministry of Education and Trustees of this school all agree that corporal punishment is not part of disciplining a pupil; that’s torture. But even my own conscience doesn’t allow that. Let that pupil calling herself Tisha come in my office and explain when that happened and by who,” he said.
Lohana schools are not international schools, but locally created by Lohana community and they serve all children regardless of their background. The schools have three campuses; Lohana Academy Kololo for Nursery to P7 with 1497 pupils, Lohana P/S for Nursery to P7 based at Old K’la and Lohana High School for S1-S6 also located in old Kampala.
All the three compasses have a population of 2255 students.
Although breakfast and lunch are provided at school,parents are allowed to pack for their children, but must observe the following;
1-Food must reach the pupil when it’s still warm to avoid diseases.
2-Food must be delivered at a designated place with very close supervision by the staff for the safety of the pupil.
3-Food must be delivered at the agreed time of 12:30pm to enable general supervision of the delivery and also allow the pupil eat lunch together with other pupils in the dining hall who eat food cooked from the school kitchen.
