The impact of gold mining on pupils ‘academic performance at school in Mutumba sub–county, Namayingo district, Uganda

Abstract

Work for survival traces back to the story of the garden of Eden when God sent Adam and Eve away to fend for themselves after disobeying his instructions of not eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge. Since then. Man works in order to get what to eat and cater for other basic needs. With the advent of formal education, formal work sector evolved. This means one undergoes education until such time when one gains skills and knowledge to perform tasks of a given formal career. This formal career means a wage at the end of a month. However, with the fact that not everybody is destined to succeed through formal education, a majority of people especially in Uganda remain fending for a living in the informal work sector. This kind of fending involves hard labour in the garden fields, in peoples’ homes, in stone quarries and in the gold mines among many others. Whether formal or informal, all work points to socio-economic development in a specific family, community, region and a nation at large. The fact is, the level of education in a given society defines the level of socio-economic development in that society. This is very apparent in the Ugandan stetting. There is clear family, community and regional socio-economic imbalance as a result of formal education imbalance, political instability and unfair distribution of national services. In my experience, geographical location seems also to have played a great role in rendering some societies and communities backward in socio-economic development. Discovery of minerals in Uganda for example has more so put some communities where such precious materials have been found at a great disadvantage. For example, the extensive sugar cane outgrowing in Mayuge district has enticed most primary school children, especially boys to dissert school for lucrative sugar cane cutting and loading.