Mukono diocese has put a ban on promenade parties commonly known as prom parties from the church founded schools with immediate effect.
The ban has been sounded by the bishop of Mukono diocese, Enos Kitto Kagodo while meeting the headteachers from the four districts of Mukono, Buikwe, Kayunga and Buvuma. The meeting was held on Thursday at the diocesan headquarters in Mukono district. Mukono diocese has over 270 secondary schools.
Bp. Kagodo said he has received a number of negative reports about the prom parties from different people, prompting him to take action.
He said that for quite some time, he has observed prom parties in different schools and that he failed to understand where the idea originated from and for which purpose they are because they are all similar in nature, only promoting coupling and other indiscipline vices amongst the students.
He said that coupling and drug abuse tendencies are always the order of the day at the promo parties whereby some students use drugs on that day specifically to get rid of shyness.
“What is unfortunate is the fact that the students spend four years or six years when the school rules and regulations are taming them from coupling but at the prom party, it is a must for students of opposite sex to enjoy the day together without any encumbrance from the school authorities. That is not right,” the cleric said.
“Some students end up pregnant just because of that one day, others due to the proceedings of the promo parties, they end up messing up their education career. Imagine, single schools end up going for opposite sex partners from other single schools, what for?” the bishop asked.
Of late, Uganda schools prefer a red carpet event where the male participants have formal black tie and suits while girls have evening gowns. This event is typically held at or near the end of the school year.
However, some schools have decided to hold prom parties at the end of first term to allow candidates to concentrate without any challenge in the second and third terms.
The chairperson of Mukono diocesan headteachers’ association, Susan Wamala Sserunkuuma told New Vision that prom parties were not initially a bad idea but it was messed up by both parents, teachers and the students themselves.
Wamala, who doubles as the headteacher of Mukono Boarding Primary School said that though it had initially been an initiative for secondary schools, but of late, also some primary schools are organizing them for candidates in Primary Seven.
“Though we may assume that candidates in Senior Four and Six are mature enough to attend such events if well organized and regulated, for the Primary Seven candidates it is not right at all,” she said.
During a separate interview, Joseph Kamya, the headteacher of St. Cyprian High School Kyabakadde, said that Bp. Kagodo was right to take that decision, blaming parents and teachers for having messed up the idea and motive of prom parties.
Kamya said that some schools allow students to bring on campus lavish posh cars and other expensive materials in the image of competitions for who or which couple wins the day.
Over the weekend, at Elite High School located at Bwebajja in Wakiso district, apart from students turning up with expensive cars, one of them hired a chopper, a gesture which the public and the Ministry of Education condemned. It is alleged that the student spent sh4.5m for hiring the chopper to take him together with his prom date to school located at Bwebajja on Entebbe road.
Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo, the State Minister for Higher Education said it was unacceptable that such an act happened in Uganda.
Muyingo said that personally he had never thought of hiring a chopper, saying that given the fact that money is a scarce resource, even when the parent for that student had money, it was not proper to spend it in that manner.
“This is horrible; what message are they sending to our children? Where are we going?” wondered Muyingo.
Kamya also said that currently, the schools are in competition in the guise of putting up the best prom parties.
He said that for schools where the students put a lot of money in proms, female students end up yearning for male students who appeared with the most expensive things for the day.
He however said that prom parties must not be banned totally but be regulated as they are also of some advantages.
Sarah Nakintu, a counselor and parent said that though some schools and religious leaders think that prom parties spoil the students but it is not true, being a one-day event.
Nakintu said that schools should just make them like ordinary parties where parents are no-longer allowed to over finance their children with expensive things including choppers and expensive cars.