Sixty-three primary schools supported by Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates and Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg and run by U.S. education are shutting down by the order of Uganda's High Court.
Around 12,000 students across the country will be affected by said closure as the schools will be immediately closed following the court ruling last November 4 despite being it in the middle of the school term according to an official in the Ugandan education ministry.
The Bridge International, a private enterprise which runs more than 400 nurseries and primary schools across Africa, disputed the ruling and tried to appeal the decision, as reported by Business Day Online.
In 2009, the company opened its first educational institution in a slum in the Kenyan capital Nairobi aiming to education 10 million children by 2025. It runs 63 for-profit schools and nurseries across the country attended by fee-paying students.
Last March 2015, Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, his wife, announced that they were investing $10 million in Bridge International through Zuckerberg Education Ventures. The enterprise is also backed by the U.K.'s Department for International Development.
These schools run by the company utilize technological innovations like e-readers or teacher computers. However, according to the report by the global trade union Education International in September, ridge International schools in Uganda were failing to uphold the national curriculum. These schools were using under-qualified teachers and there were inadequate school facilities.
Based on the report, they have found out that Bridge International's profit-driven, cost-cutting, internet-based, and standardized approach in delivery of education involves some critical shortcomings.
Following a High Court injunction in September, the schools that supposedly be closed in July remained open as ordered by the Ugandan education ministry. Godwin Matsiko, a spokesman for Bridge International schools in Uganda, said that they are planning to appeal, on behalf of more than 20,000 Ugandans who have decided to send their children to their schools. They are doing this because they want to offer them an affordable quality education.
