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A legal tug-of-war between Ugandan authorities and a for-profit international chain of schools has led to the education provider being ordered to shut down in a matter of weeks, leaving the lives of thousands of pupils in limbo.

Uganda's High Court has described the Bridge International Academies (BIA) -- which is funded by the likes of Microsoft's Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg -- as unsanitary and unqualified, and has ordered it to close its doors in December because it ignored Uganda's national standards and put the "life and safety" of its 12,000 young students on the line.