Gulu High School, one of the traditional schools in Gulu district is choking on a 500 million debt, the headmaster of the school, Saulo Lubega Muwoye revealed on Thursday last week.
Mr Muwoye revealed this to Gulu district Chairman Mr Ojara Martin Mapenduzi and Gulu Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Capt Okot Santos Lapolo when the two leaders visited the school to find a way forward on resolving the school’s debt crisis.
According to Mr Muwoye, the school owes 400 million shillings to suppliers, a debt that has been accumulated since 2012, and another 92 million in staff wages accumulated from January this year.
Muwoye told the Mr Mapenduzi and Mr Lapolo that he inherited most of the debts from the former headmaster of the school David Ocan Kitara.
Ochan was headmaster of Gulu High School from 2012 to March 2015 when he was transferred to Serere High.
Muwoye told the leaders that he faces several challenges in the school and that he needs assistance from the leadership in the district. He said parents are not paying fees yet the school is in dire need of money to meet operational costs.
The number of students, the headmaster told the leaders, has also dropped from 1000 to 670. He attributed the drop to the nose-diving academic reputation of the school.
Last year Gulu High School got only six first grades in UCE. A year before that, in 2014, they got only three.
In 2003, the school got 47 first grades in ordinary level which remains the best so far in the school’s recent history.
A meeting of the school’s suppliers has been called for on 21 May.
Mr Mapenduzi, the Gulu district chairman who is also an old boy of the school directed the Head teacher to write down the challenges the school is facing so that they can be forwarded to the ministry of education.
