EVERY SCHOOL DESERVES ITS FAIR SHARE
Before 2021, Mwanyongwe Primary School in Salima (Kanongola Zone, Traditional Authority Mwanza) had never received the school improvement grant (SIG) from the government. This impeded their chances of growing and developing as a school and compounded on existing challenges that they faced.
In an ideal situation the grant, which was introduced in 2007, is meant to directly support schools to realise the outcomes of the school improvement plans (SIP). It was introduced to support the 1998 decentralization policy which among other things was meant to bring services closer to the right holders.
Through this initiative, schools get financial support directly from the central government to implement planned activities at school level.
While SIG was meant to support schools realize the outcome of SIPs, its utilization and even provision has been haphazard over the years- with some resources being mismanaged before they even reached the schools and the grant missing some schools altogether.
Unfortunately for the school governance committee, Mwanyongwe was one of the schools that had been omitted from receiving this grant. The head teacher of Michulu Primary school, Eliyah Chafoka, bemoaned that, prior Civil Society Education Coalition’s (CSEC) intervention, he had a despondent outlook on what the future their school looked like. They had trouble finding resources so that they could procure simple teaching and learning materials for day to day learning activities. Most times they asked the community to mobilize funds to carry out the development projects but most times the money raised fell short to cover for everything.
“Can you imagine how demotivating it was that as school we would struggle to even buy a box of chalk or even a simple text book. We barely supported our own students who couldn’t even afford a textbook.” Chafoka explained.
Civil Society Education Coalition in partnership with IM Sweden is implementing a project in 16 impact schools in Kanon’gola Zone, T/A Mwanza- Salima, for a period of 5 years starting January 2019 to December 2023. CSEC has also been advocating for transparent and adequate funding for school, especially those in the most marginalized communities since its inception.
Realizing that the fund is usually mismanaged and sometimes does not trickle down to its intended beneficiaries CSEC decided to intervene by sub-granting Salima District Education Network (DEN) with resources to carry out public expenditure tracking (PET) to help address these challenges.
CSEC project officer, Duncan Chirwa stated that the PET was established to help the effectiveness of the SIG. CSEC had also engaged the DEN as well as other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to create platforms that help advocate and ensure that the grant reaches schools that are more often than not omitted.
“There’s a lot of situations whereby most schools do not get resources from the government that will help them develop. It’s our duty to find out why these situations are increasingly often and identify ways of rectifying them,” Chirwa said.
CSEC has also ensured that funds are allocated annually unlike before. This gives schools proper guarantee to implement the projects they planned for in the upcoming year.
Moreover, the PET brought to light that resources for TLMs were available but did not trickle down to the schools.
Chafoka explained that CSEC started working with their school, he had given up hope that they would ever see the grant. However, ever since the CSO set up camp in their zone he has started to see a ray of light. According to Chafoka, CSEC has been acting as an effective mediator between schools and duty bearers.
“CSEC takes our concerns to the relevant authorities and this has greatly enhanced the development of our schools,” Chafoka explained with renewed vigour, “We are certain that with this working relationship we have with them, things can only get better.”
After receiving the SIG, Mwayongwe school governance structure collectively agreed to buy TLMS and provide resources such as notebooks and uniforms to the most needy children and OVCs. They have also built two teachers houses, finished the construction of toilets and burnt bricks which be used for the construction of classroom blocks and teacher’s houses.
