By Patrick Jaramogi
NTUNGAMO, Uganda: 16 years ago, parents under a church arrangement in Nyamabare village, located some 40kms from the hub of Ntungamo decided to start a school to benefit their children.
Parents from this densely populated, but isolated area, located in the top hills of the hard to reach terrain, are still waiting for a first grade to be registered at this school. Scores of children, many of whom have since joined universities after dropping off the school that had only up to primary 4, will perhaps now smile, after the school was selected as one of the beneficiaries of the World Bank Project, Uganda Teacher and School Effectiveness Project. With funding to the tune of Ugx800 million, scores of children will now shift from the 16 year old mud and wattle classrooms, into the state of the art modern constructed classrooms. Over the years, the number of school going children has steadily been rising. The challenge was that the school, that is situated in a hard to reach area has always had teachers deployed to teach there vanishing to better schools. Today, the school has a population of 600 children, albeit with only four teachers, including the Headteacher. The current Headteacher, Sabiiti James recalls bitterly when he was posted to this school some two years ago. “When I reached here I shed tears. I immediately called the DEO (district Education Officer) and told him, I was glad with the deployment, but I am not comfortable staying in such a pathetic environment.” “Being posted at Nyamabare Parents Community School seemed liked a huge punishment to me, because of the difficulty in accessing the place.” Sabiiti told this reporter at the school recently that after calling the DEO, he (DEO) asked him whether he was a Christian. “I told him yes. He then suggested that God has a plan for me. He told me to pray and stick here.” Sabiiti says he had to learn to live the hard way. But like a miracle that was due to happen, the promise of construction of a modern school that had been pending for over 8 years finally came through, just a few months after he joined the school. When he had just joined, the issue of inadequate proper classrooms, teacher’s houses and staff-room were unavoidable. He had to ride his bike 30 miles daily from his residence in Kitwe, the nearby trading center with descent accommodation befitting a Headteacher. Sabiiti notes that its such long distances that eventually forced most teachers out due to persistent late coming coupled by absenteeism.
School Benefits from World Bank Support
Life for Sabiiti, and scores of other community members started to be filled with joy after the school was identified as a beneficiary of the Uganda Teacher and School Effectiveness Project implemented by the Ministry of Education and funded by the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Education.
Locals Trained On Social Accountability
The biggest joy that Sabiiti shares today is the skills that he got when he and others were part of the monitors that were trained by Africa Freedom of information Centre (AFIC) on social accountability and monitoring of government funded projects. Research has often shown that donor and Government aided projects that are implemented through public contracts do not yield the intended value due to many factors including; corruption, conflict, non-existent (ghost) contracts, inflated costs, diversion of funds, unnecessary contracts, secrecy, cost overruns and budget revisions, among other challenges. To address this issue, Africa Freedom of information Centre (AFIC), a Ugandan based pan-African CSO, in collaboration with Transparency International-Uganda and the Uganda Contracts Monitoring Coalition in 2014 initiated the project Enhancing Performance and Accountability of Social Service Contracts in Uganda, supported by the World Bank’s Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA). The project is implemented in five districts and focuses on agriculture, health and education sector contracts. The districts include: Ntungamo, Mubende, Nakaseke, Nebbi and Mityana. Sabiiti told us at Nyamabare that he was part of the initial 186 trained community-based volunteers to monitor contracts in the three sectors using specially developed monitoring tools. According to M/s Charity Komujurizi, the Programs Officer at AFIC, the Community members and leaders were trained on their right to public information, and about the importance of tracking public contracts being executed in their respective communities.
Sharp Eyes Helped Out
Sabiiti and scores of other monitors who spoke to us said the training was so key. “I was able to detect that the mixture of the cement was inadequate. But we also closely monitored the construction works, that is why you can see this magnificent classroom blocks,” he said. He said the schools are now perfect with huge pupil population, but what remains a thorn in the flesh is the inadequate teachers.
District Intervenes
The District Inspector of Schools, Grace Turyomunsi, who spoke to this reporter hailed AFIC for ‘opening eyes of the locals.” “As Ntungamo district, we are no so many to be everywhere monitoring government programs. It is such absence that leads to shoddy work.” He said. “But with eyes, and ears of locals on ground, you can’t fail to get such nice results.” He said with effective monitoring of the government programs by the locals trained by AFIC, best results were achieved. Commenting on the lack of teachers, Turyomunsi, who is the inspector of schools for sports said: “We are aware that Nyamabare is a hard to reach area. We have just interviewed some 20 teachers who will be posted there soon,” he said. He said the district was considering have allowances for teachers operating in remote hard- reach areas as a mechanism of having them stay put in those areas.
