Bridge International Academies, a group of low-cost private schools in Uganda supported by American billionaires Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Bill Gates of Microsoft, have been criticized for teaching “pornography,” according to Quartz. On November 4th, the High Court in Uganda ordered the closure of more than 60 schools belonging to Bridge International Academies, citing poor sanitary conditions and substandard education.
“We could not allow teaching sexual matters in public. Why teach pornography in Bridge schools? This moral decay couldn’t be tolerated,” Uganda’s Minister of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development, Matia Kasaija, said during the convocation ceremony of Uganda’s Martyrs University.
Gospel of Homosexuality
Kasaija further accused Bridge of using its schools to promote sexual education, adding that the program was being used to spread the “gospel” of homosexuality to Ugandan children.
However, the school has categorically denied any presence of such a program in its curriculum and maintains that it does not teach any foreign material that is against Ugandan cultural values.
The spokesman of Bridge International Academies, Solomon Sserwanja, described the minister’s allegations as unfortunate and asked him to “come out with proof over the matter in question.”
Sserwanja also promised to use the necessary legal channels to force the minister to substantiate his allegations.
Education Situation in Uganda
While Uganda has made significant progress in making education accessible to the majority of citizens, challenges still exist as a significant number of children don’t receive the most basic form of education.
While primary school enrollments in Uganda appear to have improved over the years, studies show great inequalities in education nationally, according to a report published by Twaweza.
About 61 percent of children in Kotido, which is in the northern party of the country, have never been enrolled in school.
The report also identified a slow rate of progression by students in primary school, with many children being more than two years older than other classmates in their grade. About 31 percent of 8-year-old students are too old for their grade.
The situation is even worse in older students, with about 82 percent of students aged 13 or older being two or more years too old for their grade.
