[New post] THE FIRST LADY AND MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND SPORTS DURING THE SECOND SAFE TO LEARN SYMPOSIUM
ugandamediacentreblog posted: " STATEMENT BY THE FIRST LADY AND MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND SPORTS DURING THE SECOND SAFE TO LEARN SYMPOSIUM Theme: "Reflecting on the gains and accelerating action towards a safe learning environment" H.E the Ambassador of Ireland Hon. Me" Uganda Media Centre
STATEMENT BY THE FIRST LADY AND MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND SPORTS DURING THE SECOND SAFE TO LEARN SYMPOSIUM
Theme: "Reflecting on the gains and accelerating action towards a safe learning environment"
H.E the Ambassador of Ireland
Hon. Members of Parliament Present
The Country Representative of UNICEF
Development Partners
The Permanent Secretaries of the various agencies
Officials from Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies
Members of Civil Society
Religious and Cultural leaders
The children
Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
All protocol observed.
I am pleased to speak to you today during the Second Safe to Learn Symposium in Uganda. I thank God for the gift of life he has given to all of us.
I also take this opportunity to thank the NRM government led by His Excellence, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for creating an enabling environment for us to discuss education concerns.
As you may be aware, Uganda is a pathfinder country in prevention and responding to violence against children. In 2019, during the World Education Forum in London, I committed on behalf of the government of Uganda and Ministry of Education to a Call to Action to respond to all forms of violence against children in and around school.
Since then, the Ministry of Education and Sports together with our development partners and civil society organizations have been implementing a number of initiatives in line with the call to action.
We have worked together to support efforts in ensuring policies and guidelines are in place to protect children from all forms of abuse and violation. In 2020, the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Developed finalized the National Child Policy. The Policy is a fulfillment of Government of Uganda's Constitutional mandate on the welfare of children. This policy is being implemented in a multi-sectoral manner and the Ministry of Education and Sports plays a critical role in implementation of the policy under various policy strategies.
Together, we have put in place violence prevention and response mechanisms in place, addressing negative social norms and practices, utilization of evidence to inform programs and mobilization of resources to support implementation of initiatives aimed at elimination of violence in schools and institution in Uganda.
I therefore take this opportunity to thank you all for the efforts to prevent and respond to cases of violence against children. Without your support, we could not have reached where we are today.
Ladies and Gentlemen, amidst all these efforts, the education ministry is grappling with other emerging concerns that have resulted into unfriendly environments for children in Uganda.
With the disruption of learning due to Covid 19, we have seen many adolescent girls getting pregnant before the age of 18 years. Evidence from the Ministry of Health indicates that between March 2020 to September, 2021, over 365,000 adolescents aged 10- 19 years were attending antenatal care at various health facilities across the country.
As a mother of the nation, I feel that this is alarming and puts our country in a dilemma. I also believe that if we are not able to save our young generation from falling prey to such vices, our beloved country will not be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals as well as Vision 2040. This therefore calls for concerted efforts from all of us to address the root cause of the current challenge of teenage pregnancy in our country.
We should work together to ensure that the perpetrators of these vices are brought to book and the victims of teenage pregnancy given a second chance to re-enrol back to school.
The Ministry of Education and sports has developed guidelines to support the prevention and management of teenage pregnancy in school settings and guidance on supporting re-entry of child mothers back to school.
As a Minister of Education and Sports in Uganda, together with the HE the Vice President and Rt. Honorable Prime Minister, we running a national campaign on prevention of defilement, teenage pregnancy, child marriage and promotion of positive parenting. I call upon all of you to join me in popularizing this campaign across the country and supporting efforts of re-integration of child mothers back to school.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, this National Campaign is being implemented in a multi-sectoral manner targeting every stakeholder including MDAs, Political leaders, Religious and Cultural Leaders, Development Partners, the Private Sector, Media and Civil Society Institutions. The safe to learn symposium fits in well with the national campaign.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I also need to mention that the safe to learn campaign is well aligned to the National Development Plan III (2020/2021) under the Pillar of Human Capital Development which talks about child development in learning, health and psychological well-being. The plan provides for prevention of violence against children so that children are able to learn, play and grow-up in a safe, clean and stimulating environment.
Our gathering here today is a true indication that we are committed to implement the National Development Plan.
Ladies and gentlemen, as earlier committed in 2019, the Ministry of Education and Sports and my leadership, recommits to ;
Implementation of policy and legislation at National and local level and supporting enforcement of laws and policies that protect children from all forms of violence.
We shall strengthen prevention and response at the school level through implementation of the National strategic Plan on Elimination of violence against children and the Guidelines on the Reporting and Tracking and Responding to violence against children
We commit to mobilization of resources and generation and use of evidence to inform both political and technical programs on child well-being in the Ministry
I therefore take this opportunity to thank all the development partners and civil society organisations that have worked with my Ministry to organize this symposium.
I hope that the deliberations from this meeting will inform future programs on safe learning environment.
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