Uganda, Feb. 10 -- She called me up recently in the night and with urgency and pain in her voice, pleading that I write about this matter: "I was one of those parents and school principals who used to be excited about taking my school children for swimming lessons, but after careful thought, I stopped. I could not continue having untrained teachers in swimming supervising children when they swim. When teachers take the children out for swimming, they are engrossed in their phones, half attentive to what is happening in the pool. I too was like that.

We have not yet had children drowning en mass in swimming pools around Kampala, but every time I see them in a school bus going for a swim, my heart skips a beat. Every teacher in a school th...