Blame games start as strained PTCs close

Kampala

Schools and primary teachers colleges implementing the free education programme will have to wait for another year or two to get an increment in grants government sends to the institutions after the education ministry failed to achieve its end of bargain in the 2011/12 national budget.

Emerging details show that the ministry had hoped to get a reasonable increment in her budget to cater for the rising concerns of poor funding to USE schools and PTCs but this never went through.

Although the government allocated an additional Shs. 115.9 billion to the Education sector in the next budget- the money will go on specific t priority areas with no provision for increasing capitation grants for students under its free education programmes.

The key priority areas to fund include, Extension of free Universal education to A-level and Business, Technical, Vocational and Education Training (BTVET), remit the usual UPE and USPE capitation grants, provision of additional physical infrastructure, train experts to run the emerging mining, oil and gas industries, address quality constraints at all levels of the education sector and enhance inspection in schools.

“We had plans and we even put in the sector budget to increase capitation grants for least for the PTCs but our prayer was not answered. Areas where increments have been are specified and we can’t work out that,” he said in an interview last Thursday.

“Although some Shs20billion has been added to cater for capitation grants, this will address the issue of the increasing students’ numbers not an increment in the unit cost .In fact, we don’t expect things to be simpler this year given the fact that the budget has almost remained the same,” he says

Ironically, PTCs which had just opened for second term on May 23 closed down last week and private schools under USE are also threatening to follow suit citing no funds to run their operations. Ms Judith Franca Akello , the Shadow Education minister blames the crisis on government’s poor planning and unchecked spending which she says had caused the national treasury to ‘dry up’.

Public outcry
“As long as this government continues to ignore the public outcries over its overspending, we are yet to see more shocking episodes. Very soon you will see hospitals and prisons closing.” Ms Akello said adding “The good thing is that they saw all this coming but went ahead with their unchecked spending spree during campaigns and we are now paying the price.”

But the Mr Keith Muhakanizi , the deputy secretary to the treasury said money was available but the education ministry had not ‘formerly communicated’ to them, a claim Kibenge dismissed.
“He (Muhakanizi) could not be in the know as an individual but his colleagues are aware. They gave us Shs10billion instead of Shs30billion for the fourth quarter to pay capitation grants and we warned them that this will negatively impact on the sector and that is exactly what is happening,” he said

Mr Isa Matovu, an educationalist says the ministry will continue to suffer if the current system of releasing education funds is not changed. “Government must completely change its way of sending money in quarters. Receiving money in second term which was meant for first term affects our operations and we can’t continue like that,”

All schools implementing free education programmes normally receive their capitation grants in three quarters. The first is released in second term; the second quarter comes in the third term, while the last quarter is received in the first term of the next academic year.
In the new national budget read on June 8, the education sector was allocated Shs1.3trillion, the same figure like last financial year. In 2009/10, the sector also enjoyed the biggest share of the national cake with an allocation of 1.079trillion up from Shs899.3billion in 2008/2009 fiscal year.

The ministry had hoped to increase capitation grants for students under free secondary education in teachers’ training colleges by Shs500 to enable the institutions meet their needs amid rising commodity prices.

This followed continuous lobbying by principals in the 45 government -aided PTCs who say that the current unit cost of Shs 1800 daily for each student is low compared to rising cost of living. This money covers the student’s meals, medical care and stationary.

Negotiations have also been on to increase capitation grants for the 7.5million pupils under the universal primary education by at least 7 percent but all this appear to been pushed to the next financial year. Currently, government spends over 100billion and least 50billion on capitation grants for UPE and USE students annually respectively. Every pupil under UPE is allocated Shs 1000; those under USE in private schools are allocated Shs47, 000 per term each while those in public USE schools receive Shs 41,000 each. Government also meets all the operational expenses of UPE schools and Shs 900,000 is given to each school annually.

Coming freedom
If free A-Level education kicks off in February next year, government will part with Shs 58.8billion to pay capitation grants for the new students on top of erecting more USE A’ Level schools. Ministry of education records show that out of the 970 government-aided implementing USE, only 228 have A’ Level and can only accommodate 36,000 students every year.

Last year’s head count showed an increasing number of students joining the programme from 579, 734 students in 2009 to 600,328 in 1,520 both government and private schools up. On the USE private schools threatening to pull out of the programme, Kibenge said it would be contravention of a Memorandum of Understanding they signed with government. “Under this USE private partnership it is indeed government which is a more reliable partner. We have always met our part of the bargain .In fact; I don’t think it is entirely in the best interest of private schools to pull out. They are certainly bridging a gap and we pray that they continue working with us,”

Some head teachers have wondered why the ministry was returning unutilized sh10billion meant to recruit primary teachers to the Consolidated Fund yet they are in dire need of funds but Kibenge said the money was not directly controlled by the education ministry. “The primary teachers’ wage bill is not managed by us .It is Public Service and Finance and if some money remains unutilized ,say for recruiting primary teachers ,they simply inform us since we are the line ministry ,” he adds

Insufficient funds
Some districts complain that they cannot afford wages of teachers due to insufficient funds. But Mr Kibenge says the ministry has severally stepped in to assist the district education service commission to effectively carry out their work.

According to Mr Kibenge ,at least Shs 1billion has been spent in the ending financial year to facilitate operations of education commissions. “We reached to the extent of funding district education service commissions to enable them do their work,” “Some couldn’t even run news paper adverts to attract teachers, we did it for but many are letting us down,” he adds.
Although the share of Uganda’s national budget to education has remained up compared to other sectors, it still looks like as a drop in the ocean given the fundamental challenges still facing the sector. It remains to be seen whether education will once get what it considers to be enough funds to address all her challenges.