Government to review students’ capitation grant

By  MERCY NALUGO

Posted  Friday, August 22  2014 at  01:00

In Summary

Government pays Shs7,560 but this has reduced to Shs6,800 as per the 2014/2015 ministerial statement proposed.

Parliament- Government is considering reviewing the students’ capitation grant rates with a view of revising them upwards in the next financial year, the State Minister for Investments has said
.Mr Ajedra told MPs yesterday that the government has no money to revise the rates up to the suggested Shs10,000 for Universal Primary Education programme (UPE) but would look for internal budget reallocations or bring to Parliament a supplementary budget to ensure that the Shs7000 is maintained.

The UPE capitation grant is channelled to schools through local governments and it is meant for the provision of extra instructional or scholastic materials.

It also meets costs for co-curricular activities, and school administration activities among other expenses incurred by the schools.

Government pays Shs7,560 but this has reduced to Shs6,800 as per the 2014/2015 ministerial statement proposed. The reduction is, however, as a result of government’s failure to increase the money to match the increasing number of students enrolled per year and inflation.

“The increasing number of students and the inflation has caused the amount to go down since the Ministry of Finance allocations to the (Education) ministry remained the same.

But we have agreed to look into the matter by looking at the internal reallocations or bringing to Parliament a supplementary budget so that it is maintained at Shs7,000,” said State Minister for Primary Education Kamanda Bataringaya.
He said the Shs10,000 shall be implemented in the next financial year.

The Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, a human rights organization, together with Kalungu West MP Joseph Ssewungu Gonzanga early this year sued the government, seeking to stop the proposed reduction of UPE fund, reasoning that reducing the grant would have negative impact on the quality and standards of education in UPE schools.

They said the budget cuts would further worsen the phenomenon of schools asking for development funds from the pupils, which is currently making a significant contribution to the school dropout rates.

This comes at a time when a number of school heads and other stakeholders have been asking government to increase its contribution for government supported students under the free education for all programme.

While the ministry of Education has asked for an extra Shs19 billion to effect the increment in this financial year’s ministerial statement, it is classified by the ministry of Finance under the unfunded priorities with an explanation that there has been an increment in enrollment.

mnalugo@ug.nationmedia.com 

Accessed friday 22nd, August, 2014 from:http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Government-to-review-students--capitation-grant/-/688334/2426840/-/7puhkc/-/index.html 

A new direction of Teaching- BOG members and Head teachers declare

RIC-NET organized a stakeholders meeting for school management and English heads of department from the project schools and college on 20^th August 2014. it was continuation of activity to Support representatives of BOGs/PTAs to develop and implement institutional policies that support ICT integration and sustainability. The meeting was held at Verina Gardens Kasese town. It was attended by head teachers, Board of governors and PTA members from the project schools and college. 6 were females and 7 males; include 3 heads of schools, members of the Board on the academic committee, heads of English department and the principal Bwera teachers college and some Tutor.

The goal of the meeting was “Raising awareness and training of Head teachers, PTA and BOG to support ICT enhanced learning/The use of monitoring tools in eight institutions” With Objectives as “To raise the awareness of the management of the schools on the use of ICT enhanced learning”. We only targeted the PTA executive committees, the Board of governors and the school management of both secondary schools and the teacher training college.

The project has 3 focus points; a) Skilling the teachers and Tutors with necessary ICT skills to improve the teaching-learning process).Work with the administrators of the schools and PTC to support the teaching process using ICT innovations and c).work with the management committee to develop policies that support the new innovations as mentioned. Thus the end result works in the dimension of teachers (to develop the mind set), learners (to improve the learning ability and concentration level) and the administration of the schools (to easy the process of monitoring and administration).The equipment that were given out are thus meant to aid this dimension in order to achieve the intended i.e. aid the process of teaching and help to develop the mindset of the teachers and the learners.

Members agreed that this is the good way with new direction and tools to be used to support learning in schools. It will move our teachers from rural setup mind of teaching to modern creative teaching. Its more learner centered innovation that will reduce laziness from the teachers and improve the learning abilities. The school management committee pledge to support the school administration in ensuring that condition are in place to support the innovations for the benefit of their learning and excelling in academics.

CENTER COORDINATING TUTORS TRAINED TO ROLL OUT PROJECT IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN KABAROLE AND KASESE DISTRICTS

        One of the ways of ensuring sustainability of the C4C project is by training center coordinating tutors so that they can offer continuous teacher development in secondary schools and also train and orient teachers of primary schools in the use of ICTs. In the first phase of the trainings, teachers of secondary schools were trained on the use of ICT for lesson planning and delivering lessons. In the second phase PTC tutors were trained but since center coordinating tutors are in charge of following up implementation of programs in primary schools, it was found necessary to train them so that they could offer continuous teacher development to teachers and also help roll out the C4C programme in primary schools.

The tutors discussed ways how they would help teachers in primary schools use ICTs for teaching and learning. Probable challenges were also discussed and ways how to mitigate them. The achievements so far were brought forward and some of them were; since the training of center coordinating tutors, they have also trained eighteen other teachers (4F, 14M) in the use of ICTs to teach effectively and monitor the usage of ICTs in primary teacher colleges and primary schools. These trainings were carried out at the centers and at least 2 teachers were trained from each of the center schools.

One CCT, Mr. Dumba suggested that since CfSU has been working with an experienced tutor, there should be and endeavor and emphasis to relate the stories to the curriculum and guide the teachers accordingly.

Members identified areas of emphasis where digital stories can be used as teaching vocabulary, tenses, summary, picture interpretation etc.

some of the CCTs in a group discussion during the workshop

Reactions from Participants

The CCTs were very enthusiastic about rolling out the program in primary schools and pledged to offer their support to see the project successfully implemented in the schools.

 Although electricity shortage was noted as one of the challenges that would affect the implementation of the program in primary schools, one of the CCTs, Mr. Sesanga, suggested that as part of their responsibility as tutors and over seers, they should ensure that schools have at least one ICT enhanced lesson in their schemes of work and will gradually improve the frequency of use of ICT for teaching English language as schools adopt  alternative means of acquiring power.