We met with Justus Matsiko at New City Annex Hotel in Kampala on August 21 for about three hours. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss various aspects of the school and cow project. Please note that we were not able to visit Rukungiri during this trip.
The school now has 224 students, with 11 teachers, a bursar and 2 cooks. The school now goes to P7 and the senior students are gearing up for exams in November. The senior students board as they are under considerable pressure to perform. The boarding system is definitely different from the West.
Previously Marumba had needed to team up with another school for the exams as it did not fully meet government requirements. This has been reported on previously. However, the management of the other school did not like the fact that the Marumba children outperformed their own, even though that school was effectively credited with having taught the children, so it has refused to let Marumba use it as an exam centre this year. It is a straight case of jealousy.
Justus has talked to the school inspector who has recommended that Marumba work hard to get its own legal mandate as an exam centre. We support this but there are requirements still to be met and these come at a cost. The inspector is helpful and has interceded with the other school for this year, and we understand that Marumba will be able to use the other school again as its exam centre. The inspector has apparently insisted on this so that is good. But it does leave the question of Marumba meeting government requirements and being able to be registered in its own right.
We support this and if further funds are needed we think this is a worthy cause. This school is definitely doing good things for its community. 180 of the children come from the local, and extremely poor, trading centre. When we were there a couple of years ago there was a huge amount of work being done to upgrade it and it is well presented.
We don’t always find Justus the easiest of our partners to relate to and he can be somewhat demanding at times but he heads a school which is a real credit and which is actually delivering high quality education and has good people working there.
Justus outlined his plans for the school as follows:
1) Registration done to meet government requirements. This means that funds have to be found to carry out the work required.
2) Aim to increase the school enrolment over time to 500. This actually seems reasonable and practical.
3) To do this some temporary structures have to be removed and permanent ones done but as the school grows this can be funded from within.
4) There needs to be a new kitchen and nursery school areas completed.
5) The site needs water storage and electricity. There is one tank providing some water storage but it needs a second to meet Ministry requirements. The site has mains water connected but we accept that this may be a need. We would not recommend funding this.
Going forward we have told Justus that it is important that the surplus income from the milk cooler now in Mbarara be utilised for the school. Previously this was contributing about US$555 a school term but for various reasons is currently not doing so. We had some very direct discussions about this and understand that Justus will rework the budget to provide for a surplus for the school as originally intended. We think that any additional external funding should factor this in and that it be clear that additional funding now will reduce by this amount as this is our expectation based on what happened in the past.
We have some concerns about Justus and thought it would be good to include those concerns as they are relevant to the issues. They are:
1) Justus made unilateral decisions, without telling anyone at Bright Hope World, to relocate the milk cooler and cows to Mbarara. We accept that there may be good reasons for this but he has effectively asserted control over something which is not really his to control.
2) The move has cost and as a result of the move the school is currently not being supported from the cooler. This may change, but is not good.
3) Justus has indicated that some of the issues he found at Rukungiri are likely to be present in Mbarara too (competition and difficulties with milk supply)
4) He has assumed that BHW or a donor will make up his shortfall, notwithstanding our very direct discussions over several years about sustainability. He has never understood this or, if he has, he has proceeded on a different basis.
5) We do not think there is any commitment to repay the cost of the milk cooler as a loan – even to the EM Fund - as was expected.
6) All of the above cause us concern but we also recognise that schools are probably never going to be self-sustaining and may require ongoing support. Not only that, but they serve important purposes in very poor communities.
The figures in Justus' report seem quite reasonable and cannot really be argued with. The only issue is that the milk cooler income is not included and should have been but we discussed that with Justus and he knows that he needs to take steps to address that.
The shortfall per term is shown as US$1,414 and we recommend that support be increased by that amount for a year and then reviewed. If the cooler is on stream again at that stage then this support should be stopped.
Secondly we recommend that consideration be given to funding the remaining items needed to secure registration. We think this is an important hurdle to cross.