New School

Getting from one health center to another in the villages requires sharing rides in the UN cars that come to ‘the field’ from Mbarara each day. So on Monday I rode along with a visitor from one of the funding agencies- Millennium Promise Japan- who was in Uganda to look at the education projects that the organization is supporting. It was the first day of school after the long holiday break and we visited a new school that was almost ready for use. In theory, there is universal primary education for 7 years in Uganda. But a number of factors get in the way; while ‘free’, fees for uniforms and supplies are sometimes challenging for parents; schools may be far from homes as the majority of Ugandans live in rural areas (up to 5 km within the project area in mountainous terrain); and children, especially girls, are often needed at home to fetch water and firewood, work in the gardens, and care for younger siblings. Early in the project, the primary school enrollment was 76% though this doesn’t account for later starts to the school day and absences. The goals have been to make primary education truly universal within the project cluster and to improve the quality of education. Millennium Villages Project has built and upgraded schools and initiated school feeding programs. Initially the project supported 100% of the school feeding costs though parents have gradually been assuming responsibility by contributing bags of food (beans, cornmeal, matoke). Each school also has a garden cared for by the students so that parents now know that their children are getting a varied diet and they often send pre-school children with their older siblings. Early in the project, only 15% of children went on to secondary school. School fees and expenses (usually children need to board at schools away from the villages), early marriages, and parental bias against girl education prevent girls, especially, from going on to secondary school. So Millennium Promise Japan has started to fund secondary education for a limited number of girls who have gotten the top grade in their primary 7 exams. There is a running discussion about the wisdom of investing in a few children vs. using the money in general school improvement. Personally, I’ve met some of these girls who are so smart and deserving of this scholarship and I am convinced (with no proof) that this is a good use of funds.