Background and Manager
The Grace Care Secondary School Project is located in Nakawuka Village, Wakiso District, Uganda under the supervision of onsite manager Pr Emmanuel Kamuli, an experienced master builder who supervises all building contractors. His previous experience includes building residential houses, government construction projects, and the two primary schools. The land was donated for the project before 2013, but the sub-division of the land delayed the legal land title until December 2016. The project began in 2017 when the architect’s plans were finalized.
Uganda’s Educational Challenges
With one of the youngest and most rapidly growing populations in the world (48.5% under 14), a GDP per capita of $US 2,400 in 2017 and a mainly informal economy (cash or barter sales) the Government has little to spare for educating the huge numbers of school-age children.
Although the government does try to provide education for all children, the quality is poor with some 100 children per class, limited infrastructure, and low-paid teachers. In practice, many children cannot even access a government school. The situation is worse for secondary education, where census data from 2004 indicates that for every ten students enrolled in primary schools, only one is enrolled at a secondary institution (Wikipedia).
The only vocational schools accessible as an alternative to high school education are limited to those established during the early sixties by the colonial government. These cater to a population of 5 million compared to the current, estimated 44 million.
Staggering Orphan Numbers
There are an estimated 5,000,000 (five million) orphans in Uganda, largely the outcome of HIV/AIDS infection among 6% of youth and 8% of marrieds. This number is projected to increase over time. Others are orphaned due to natural parental death due to poor living conditions, limited medical care, dilapidated infrastructure, and poorly equipped hospitals. The maternal mortality of 500 mothers out of 100,000 births only creates more!
Grace Care Schooling
Grace Care is a locally run project which has built and operates two primary schools. One school is in Rakai, a very poor area in the southwest of Uganda, and caters for 80 boarders plus 270 day-children. The other school, the Life Care Academy (photo on left), is in Kyamula, a slum suburb in the south of Kampala, which is now attended by 240 day-children. These schools were set up so that orphans and other disadvantaged children could access education. The majority of the children at the schools are either orphans or from one-parent families, with many others having a sick parent.
The Need for a Secondary School
Despite relatively limited facilities, the children are lovingly and well cared for, and educational standards, as measured by the independent, external end of primary school examinations, are among the best in their school districts. However, less than 20% of the first 210 graduates from these schools have been able to access secondary education.
Children graduating from primary school at 12 or13 are too young to access jobs in the formal economy, and unless they can find regular work with caring relatives (usually farm-related work in the country or a street stall in Kampala), they are extremely vulnerable to depression, involvement in criminal activities, and to both physical and sexual abuse. Girls are particularly at risk, as they often end up working as a live-in maid or nanny, and this places them in a very vulnerable position.
Hence the need for a secondary school that can admit graduates from the two primary schools to continue their education.
The New School Details
The school site is at Nakawuka, approximately 30 km southwest of Kampala, and approximately 30 km west of the Lifecare primary school. The Rakai primary school (image right) is 180 km southwest of Nakawuka. Nakawuka is a rural area that is rapidly being encroached on by the sprawling suburbs of Kampala. This makes it a very strategic area for a high school, with a growing local population. The school site is 2.1 acres of gently sloping land, which will permit adequate space for all school facilities.
We intend to complete building the school to accommodate up to 100 children for four years of secondary schooling by the end of 2029.
Stages of Development
Funding is the main constraint on the timing of this project. If we had sufficient funding, the school would be built so that it could open in 2026. As the Rakai school urgently needs more funds, donors who would give to complete this stage of building the secondary school are now expected to prioritise keeping the Rakai school open. Completion of the first building will take at least one year. The building can be completed in a matter of months, once funding is available, but we anticipate that funds will not be available, so we have allowed up to two years for this. Once the first building is completed, we would have 8 large rooms plus 4 separate toilet/shower blocks. Initial room use will be:
- Two dormitories
- Two laboratory classrooms
- Three general classrooms
- One office.
At this point it would be possible to admit the first students. The school would be started with the two junior years of pupils (senior 1 and senior 2). Due to the number of specialist teachers required at secondary level, it is best that two years are admitted at once. The initial S2 students will mainly come from students who are sponsored and have completed S1 at other schools; they are likely to be boarders. However, we now consider it wisest to delay opening the school until a second (smaller) building is operational
- With only one building, the school could only cater for one sex, as we consider the logistics of separating boys from girls both sleeping within one building would be too hard.
- We would need additional classrooms after two years. Fundraising to build the second building while subsidising the school operating costs would be very hard. If building funds were not raised in time the children would need to move school or, if places were
not available for them, be unable to complete their secondary education. Hence a second building will be added prior to admission of students. This will have the same footprint as the first, but initially will only be a single floor (additional floors can be built as and
when the school has the opportunity to expand, to cater for more pupils). The four rooms in this building will be initially be used as two dormitories, one classroom, and one kitchen (the kitchen will also be used for catering classes, catering being one of the electives in the syllabus).
The planned stages and timeframe:
| Stage | Year | Development |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | End 2025 -Mid 2026 | Completion of building 1 |
| 2 | 2026-2028 | Completion of building 2 |
| 3 | 2027-2030 | Open school, S1 and S2 Next year (60 – 70 pupils) |
| 4 | 2028-2031 | School, S1 – S3 Next year (90 – 105 pupils) |
| 5 | 2029-2032 | School, S1 – S4 From then (expect 120 – 140 pupils, max 180) |
NB S1 = senior class, first year to S4 senior class, fourth year (equivalent to grade 10 in Australian system).
The operating cost subsidy will mainly be covered by child sponsorship. After stage 5 the school will be stable. Buildings 1 and 2 can be expanded to cater for more students, if demand warrants this and funding is available. The architects plan (above) is for a school of 450 pupils.
The board has discussed the potential for a funding shortfall delaying the construction of building 2. In this situation there are a number of potential uses for building 1, until the facilities and funds are in place to open the school. These include start-up businesses, who would pay
rent for a limited term lease; or adult education and training (eg short courses on business management; marketing; agronomy etc). While these options are by no means ideal, they will ensure the building is used in the meantime. Rents paid will go towards the construction of
building 2.
Self-sufficiency…
Once the school is stable with at least 120 pupils, income will consist of school fees, child sponsorships, with some sales of items produced by the children in their elective subjects. The project can gradually become self-supporting, after stage 5. The main income will then come from school fees, with some additional income generated from training activities associated mainly with the elective subjects of agriculture (vegetable growing and raising chickens) and catering. In the meantime, child sponsorships, together with initial fee income, and some additional donations will cover the running costs of the school.
Gradually more of the child sponsorship funds will be provided from inside Uganda. Three children who were helped by the program have now graduated from tertiary education; one runs a shop; one is a nurse and one a pharmacist. All three are paying into the program to give other children the chances they had. These funds, together with gifts from the Side-by-Side church in Kampala will in time enable the program to become independent of overseas donors.
In order to maintain the charitable intent of the school, at least half the places at the school will be reserved for needy children, either paying no fees, (we aim for at least 30% of the children paying no fees) or heavily subsidised fees that their guardians can afford. Fees for the remaining children will be kept lower than is typical for private secondary schools; we aim to keep the maximum fees paid to 80% of the standard private school fees.
The project fills a significant gap in government-provided education. The youth dominated population will prevent the government from significantly improving its provision of education for many years to come, so this project is vital to ensure that some of the next generations are not condemned to poverty. This is a tailor-made, locally instigated and locally run project and there are no other NGOs or agencies working in this area.
As the school expands the intention is to build additional separate dormitory blocks and convert the first building to classrooms only. Nakawuka is a growing community, as Kampala suburbs have expanded out towards this previously quiet rural village. We can anticipate that in the future there will be an increasing number of day pupils at the school, from the local Nakawuka community. The main structures will be built for easy conversion between dormitories and classrooms, to allow for changing needs. There will always be a need for pupils who come from Rakai to board at the school.
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