In Uganda today, not only are there serious exogenous forces at play to undermine the Universal Primary Education in the rural areas of the country, but there is also a new situation being exploited by dull and lazy pupils to dodge classes and tests. It is no news today that some of the biggest factors behind the high school dropout among the girl-child population in Africa South of Sahara are poor sanitation related issues. When a girl at puberty begins to experience her menstrual cycle, some of the embarrassments they face is lack of toilet facilities or pit latrines in which to privately manage their periods. Because the toilet facilities or pit latrines are often lacking, these kids just go home and start engaging in chronic monthly absenteeism leading to eventual drop out and early marriage.

However, there is a new twist to this situation in Uganda today where some lazy pupils in rural schools are now using the shortage of pit latrines to dodge classes as the school authorities look by hopelessly. The lazy pupils come from a cross-section of the classes and streams. They converge at the pit latrines simultaneously with visible signs and behaviors manifesting the urgent need to ease themselves. This is then followed immediately by a very well organized queue that is long and static but with some lying on the grass or under trees chatting.

Those who enter the pit latrine deliberately take more than 10 minutes and with 15 pupils on the line, chatting, but showing a lot of pressure to answer nature’s call, you are talking of putting to waste as many as 150 minutes at the pit latrine queue. The school authorities just look on because they have quickly realized that it is their poor management style that is being exploited by these lazy but crafty pupils. The Pit latrines are usually too few for the school population of about 1000. As a result of this emerging pit latrine traffic congestion debacle, the number of pupils dodging classes, missing tests, and some even skipping exams at the end of the term is on the rise.

The various school management committees seem to blame government for not giving the schools enough funds to build pit latrines, which is why there is this problem. The blame game is spreading to the political domains, with a number of opposition politicians capitalizing on this systemic weakness to attack the ruling party for failing to manage the education system, let alone funding more pit latrines for Ugandans.  At this rate, the pit latrine congestion problem may cause some politicians some votes, much as it has affected the academic standards in my country.