“Before mammy left, she said she would be visiting the school to see me every Sunday but she has never returned since then,” the young girl noted, as she is attending a boarding school for the first term.
As schools prepare to break off for the holidays starting this week, the management of Pherry Junior School in Mukono Municipality is worried about the whereabouts of the mother who dropped a seven-year-old daughter at school and disappeared.
According to the school, Joyce Nakku 43, reported at the beginning of the term on February 4, 2025 and enrolled the daughter, Nana Blessing Namaganda in Primary Two on top of paying only sh190, 000 out of 270, 000 required for a full school uniform.
Upon being advised by the admission desk to deposit additional money as required by the school system, she asked teachers to accept to stay with the child and allow her to go to the bank to withdraw additional payments but has never returned.
The school headteacher, Rogers Oboth, says as the day closed, the matter was reported to his office and tried contacting Nakku through the numbers left behind on the admission form but declined to pick.
“The parent partially deposited money for the school uniform only, dropped the child without any other school requirement such as books, pens and school fees,” Oboth notes.
Oboth reported the matter to the school director, Sylivia Okite who advised him to properly take good care of the girl until the mother returns but unfortunately, the school prepares to close the term on April 30, 2025 but the mother has never responded.
“The child was dropped here on the second day of the schools’ opening, regrettably she had no relatives to associate with on the visiting day, one of my teachers had to play the role of a mother. Again, parents picked their children for the Easter break, it is only the little girl who stayed behind. My teacher again played the mother-role but now the term is coming to an end, and we have no arrangement for keeping children at school during holidays,” Okite notes.
When the seven-year-old-girl was asked about her home, it became a little bit hard for her to trace following the repeated shifting.
She revealed that before enrolling to Pherry Junior School in Mukono, she was attending SKK Kindergarten and primary School in Bweyogerere. During the holidays they shifted to Katosi in Mukono district.
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After staying at Katosi for some days, the mother took her to Jinja to complete the holiday before she enrolled her in a new school.
“Before mammy left, she said she would be visiting the school to see me every Sunday but she has never returned since then,” the young girl noted, as she is attending a boarding school for the first term.
She says the mother used to work in a hospital and the father is a police officer but could only recall one name as ‘Dalton’.
The school reveals that they tried private tracing of the mother from areas such as Katosi where the child says they live, but the efforts have not yet yielded any results.
On the school admission form, the mother recorded the next of kin as John Katongole whom she describes as the father.
To the contrary, the telephone number attached under Katongole’s name is picked by a different person who says used to have a private affair with Nakku before she left Bweyogerere but denies having a child with her.
The person who picks the calls requested not to publish his name in order to protect his image before the family at Byeyogerere but wondered how Nakku reached the stage of abandoning the child at school.
He noted that she seemed a responsible mother. He also revealed that she used to have three children including the one she dropped at Pherry.
He also noted that she is a qualified doctor who used to work at Nsambya hospital surgery department but resigned with plans to travel and secure residence in Canada but due to unforeseen circumstances, the plans failed after injecting a lot of money.
The minor confirms that it is true she had elder siblings she identifies as Enid Nampijja and Sarah Layton Nabakooza but could not recall the exact school they were studying from.
Mukono Municipality Probation Officer, Jackeline Mirembe acknowledges that her office was equally informed about the matter and has severally tried to contact the mother but declined to pick.
Mirembe says they have started looking for a foster family to save the school from making more expenditures on the girl during holidays.
She appeals to parents to be more responsible regardless of the economic hardships which leads them into taking drastic decisions. For any information that can help the school to reach out to Nakku, contact police or the school on 0200912353.