Support KCCA to streamline education

By Patrick Kaboyo

Anselm Adams, a renowned author asserted, "A good photograph is knowing where to stand."Further, he said, "You don't take a photograph, you make it." In his wisdom, lies a fact that KCCA is not only taking a step but making a land mark policy shift to ensure a lasting paradigm shift in the delivery of education services for all.

With skill and zeal, intent and purpose, KCCA is moving into the right direction, helping guarantee the future of our children. By enforcing compliance to education policies and standards, the Directorate of education and social services is not only taking the right decision on a firm ground that must be supported but setting the pace for all education officers to emulate.

KCCA should be supported for its insistence to ensure policy compliance not only inspires majority of the private school proprietors in contributing to the delivery of education services but also ensures  maximization of standards and safeguarding stakeholder interests with the learner at the fore.

Ugandans deserve better. They require meaningful and honest intervention from government ministries, departments and agencies to enable them realise their aspiration in totality. KCCA like the government of Uganda, has not only done the right thing  to streamline the delivery of education services but rather the urgent one in prioritising  monitoring, building capacity of education managers and administrators through coaching and mentoring.

As a way forward, proprietors of private schools need to embrace administrative reforms and directives for they are mechanisms to specifically ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of services generally. Good policy directives should not be perceived as tools for witch-hunting investors on short, medium  or long term but rather should be viewed as God given opportunities to safeguard the safety and security of our pupils/students, teachers, and the entire school community from uncertainties.

Much as it is critical that private schools deserve to be supported and supervised, inspected and coached in order for them to deliver on their missions, visions and core values, proprietors too are required to liaise with their mangers in ensuring the they are doing the right things to avoid a certain point in time where they are required to do things right.

Participation in building our city is a foundation in a belief that we can bequeath to the next generation, a legacy.

Whereas it is a fact that some private school proprietors are hard nuts to crack, it should also be noted that majority of them are ignorant about government policy on education both at local and national level. Often times, school proprietors continue to run schools as personal projects departing from the tenets of the law, the education Act 2008. Increasingly, a good number of schools have maintained a strained communication system that does not effectively serve the interests of the school and its stakeholders. Private schools need capacity in developing effective communication strategies for and beyond the school confinement.

Due to the current practice of doing wrong things, a good number of schools view corrective measures as punitive and an inconvenience for their businesses to thrive. It should be noted that times and leaders have changed and so should the mindset among a number of private school proprietors.

Strongly, we should support KCCA to offer a foundation for discipline, a culture for compliance and commitment to serving our communities as they too deliver on their mission and visions.

In supporting KCCA streamline the delivery of education services, one needs to reflect on a photograph, as was put by Ansel Adams one of the most celebrated authors who stated that, "A photograph is usually looked at -seldom looked into," in translating the same principle, our interest should be focused on looking into the benefits of an organised Capital City Authority and nothing else.

With over two thousand private primary schools and secondary schools excluding nursery schools and Day care centres, all parents and people of good will must rally behind KCCA to ensure that education service provision is streamlined. No parent extend the cleaning to education institutions. Like the saying, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," no school should be spared from the health and functionality check that the Kampala Capital City Authority has announced for a better school is a better population. Schools must adhere to the Basic Requirements and Minimum Standards (BRMS 2010), period!  In embracing change, government  policy must be prioritised and respected.

The writer is the Executive Director of Coalition of Uganda Private School Teachers Association COUPSTA, coalitionmovers2003@yahoo.com