Hoima education officer urges oil company to rethink scholarship programme

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Acting Hoima district education officer, Harriet Kihumuro, has asked the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Uganda Ltd to redesign their scholarship-warding programmes to create a positive impact among the beneficiaries.

She has commended CNOOC for initiating the scholarship programme, but says there is a need to redesign it since 2012, when it started, a big number of students have benefitted, but many have dropped out of school due to their families' inability to finance their next levels of education.

She made the remarks on Friday, May 30, 2025, while addressing CNOOC officials, 300 students and other district stakeholders at the CNOOC Best Performers Awarding ceremony at Hoima district headquarters in Hoima city.

During the ceremony, shillings 73,950,000 million was given out to students from Hoima city, the districts of Kikuube and Hoima who excelled in last year’s national examinations.

The money was given out to 300 students from the three local governments by CNOOC Uganda Ltd after they were selected by the offices of the District Education Officers (DEOs) based on the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) results released early this year. Since the inception of the Top Performers Awards in 2012, a total of 1,448 students have benefited from the awards. This year, top-performing students from Hoima city (88), Hoima District (86), and Kikuube District (126), including 6 students with disabilities, have benefitted from the initiative.

CNOOC Uganda Ltd, which is a subsidiary of CNOOC, is one of the largest oil and gas companies in Uganda's energy sector and owns one-third interests in each of Exploration Areas in the Albertine Graben.

Kihumuro said once redesigned, the programme will create a positive impact on beneficiaries.

“Some students come from financially incapacitated families, they cannot continue their children with their studies, they cannot progress, if we tried to profile those who were awarded in 2013 to date, you might discover that they are nowhere, they did not even progress from Primary Seven to secondary and they just used the token as an allowance to do other things,” she said.

"If we can conduct a research on those people who were awarded right away from 2013 to date, the research would help us to redesign the programme, maybe we can think of getting the most vulnerable child, a child from Buhuka landing site, Kabaale oil and has done well, instead of giving him that award, he can be assisted to join these good schools and they proceed with their studies” she said.

Reacting to her request CNOOC Uganda Ltd corporate social responsibility manager, Zakalia Lubega, said the company has received a lot of feedback on this issue and that they are looking into it.

“It is true that when we were doing verification of these beneficiaries, they told us that some of the students were unable to continue with their education, you find some stop at P7, while others at S4. So, we have this feedback and we are trying to incorporate this feedback to ensure that those who will be  found to be vulnerable, we shall see how to work with their parent to ensure that they continue with their education” 

CNOOC Uganda vice-president, Wang Jufeng, said CNOOC is committed to improving education standards and building a cordial relationship with the communities in their areas of operations.

He challenged the communities in the region to get prepared by educating their children and engaging in production so as to be able to benefit from the oil and gas industry.

Hoima district chairperson Uthaman Mubarak Mugisha was optimistic that the awards will encourage students to double their effort in studying, and this will contribute to the improvement of performance in schools.

However, he challenged CNOOC to support the district in sensitising parents in rural areas to understand the importance of education, adding that a big number of students, mostly from shores of lake Albert, start primary one but few complete the cycle.

Hoima Resident District Commissioner, Rodger Mbabazi, demanded that there should be a way of relaxing the required marks to ensure that government school learners also benefit from the programme.

He observed that the programmes are mostly benefitting students from private schools. 

Representing the beneficiary schools, Steven Ssemaganda, the deputy headteacher of St Andrea Kaahwa Colleges, commended CNOOC for initiating, saying that this initiative has encouraged students to work hard.