The Ministry of Education and Sports has issued provisional licences to eight branches of 46 Bridge International Academies, paving way for them to open for the third term.
The move is welcome news to thousands of pupils after the schools were closed last year over failure to meet the required minimum standards.
The clearance comes after the ministry inspected the eight branches of the schools. The permanent secretary in the ministry of Education, Mr Alex Kakooza, on Thursday, September 19, 2019, said they set up a special committee to study Bridge schools and make appropriate recommendations.
“When the schools lost the case to us in the High Court, we started talks with the managers and asked them to work upon the issues we had raised,” Mr Kakooza said in an interview.
“Our committee established that the eight schools had met the above minimum standards and we have cleared them,” he added.
He asked the managers to work on the recommendations the ministry issued to them for the other 38 schools and if they meet the standards after inspection, they will also be cleared.
Bridge International Schools have a population of 12,000 pupils in their 46 campuses spread across the country. The schools are also operational in Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria respectively.
The clearance comes at a time when students are reporting for the third term.
The minister of Education, Ms Janet Museveni, informed Parliament after the closure last year that the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) had established that the schools were operating without licences and the infrastructural and hygiene standards were found wanting.
The schools were also accused of using unskilled teachers and failure to follow Uganda’s curriculum, among others.
The school proprietors ran to court in the same year but failed to block the closure.
