By Denis Jjuuko
When the so-called traditional elite schools want something that is fancy and suspect parents will oppose it, they call the Old Students Association (OSA) and pitch. The OSA presents the idea as their own and claim that they will entirely fund it. So they raise some money usually not more than 20% over a long period and create a situation through which increment of fees is justifiable.
The OSAs don’t make any legal biding decisions that school administrators can follow and leadership can easily be sidelined if they don’t tow the line. And if OSA leadership doesn’t behave, the school administrators turn to Parents and Teachers Associations (PTA) — another toothless body in the management of schools. The majority of OSA and PTA leaders are mainly into it for self-actualization and/or so they can have their unqualified relatives easily admitted into these schools among other shenanigans. These schools receive and manage billions every three months. They don’t do much by the way in terms of infrastructure with the exorbitant fees they charge. If a parent raises a finger, they quickly inform them that they can take their kids elsewhere. So most parents cow into submission while the OSA/PTAs are ineffective. School administrators have become princelings.
And that is how schools are ending up thinking having a storied canopy over the gate is the most important thing. They are competing over who has the fanciest canopy over its gate. If you raise a finger, the OSA comes for you as a paid commentator or at worst a jealous old man. Huge sums of money are being spent on gate canopies, chapels and other such things that add no value to a student’s education in the 21st century. Apparently, gate canopies improve the image of the schools ahead of rickety buildings and congested dormitories. It is akin to applying exotic lipstick before brushing your teeth.
I have been to some of the dormitories of these elite schools and there is a lot to be desired. The classrooms and teaching methods are of 19th century when these schools were founded by people who were less interested in a holistic education system for our country. But they must have a school bus with personalized license/number plates. A personalized license plate costs Shs20m (the ordinary plates cost Shs143,000). This is vanity dressed as marketing.
Most of the school administrators are previously poorly paid teachers with zero entrepreneurship skills yet they are given billions to manage. That is why they only think of fundraisers and fees increments.
These schools which make billions every three months are good at fundraising drives yet their competitors — the privately owned schools are expanding their campuses and providing infrastructure that is conducive for learning without any government subsidies. In order to charge a premium and at the same time fundraise for fancy cosmetic structures they don’t need, they charge a premium and make it hard for kids to get admitted. A country’s education system is wrong when its so-called better schools are proud of how difficult it is for kids to get in.
They deliberately make it difficult to enroll so that they can ask parents to pay for stuff they end up selling back. A school asks students to bring for example two brooms every first term. That could easily be 1,500 brooms for a school with a population of 750 students. What would a school do with 1,500 brooms a year? Assuming each broom is Shs2,500, that translates to Shs3.75m. Uniforms made of cheap polyester materials are sold at rates higher than designer clothes in this town.
Schools, which are aided by taxes can have their personalized license plates and fancy gate canopies but it should come at a cost that is affordable and not through conspiracy with OSA/PTAs. They can use the money OSAs raise to create investment funds instead of thinking of only fundraisers and school fees increment. The investment funds would earn interest, which can be used to build fancy gates and prayer houses. Schools get lots of money when the term starts — money they would only need in the last week of the term. What do they do with it? They can invest it in short-term vehicles.
The money OSAs raise should then be invested and probably use 5% of the annual profit to run some programmes or build whatever they fancy. That is how Harvard University has created the world’s biggest endowment fund that makes it the holy grail of education in the world. Schools here can borrow leaf (after all they love referring to themselves as Uganda’s Ivy League education centres). Harvard didn’t become arguably the best university in the world because they have fancy canopies over their gates.
Talking of Ivy League, these elite schools should go beyond the academic syllabus given to them by the education ministries. They can, for example, teach kids to code, think, and perhaps debate. Today, some of them come out of these schools unable to type in Microsoft Word yet the schools have gigantic computer labs. Schools must concentrate on training kids with the skills needed in the 21st century not bragging about who has a better canopy over their gate.
The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com
*Artistic impression of the proposed Namiryango College gate. Internet photo
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