Who is responsible for birth of ghost pupils, schools?

     MWALIMU      

By Vision Reporters

During this year’s budget speech on June 12, finance minister Maria Kiwanuka proudly told the country that the number of pupils in primary school had hit 8.4 million against a target of 8.5 million.

However, less than a month later, finance said figures from local governments put the Universal Primary Education (UPE) enrollment at just 5.7 million while only about six million children are captured in the education ministry management information system (EMIS). With a variance of over two million, which figures should be believed?

Ghost pupils, schools

The finance ministry, in a July 17 statement to parliament following a New Vision expose on reduced and delayed capitation payments, said the delays followed a snap verification by finance, which discovered discrepancies in the number of schools and enrollment figures submitted by education ministry and the local governments.

“The preliminary results received from 116 local governments and Kampala Capital City Authority by July 1, 2014 showed that enrolled UPE pupils were 5,734,937, which was less than the 6,031,777 pupils reported in the education ministry statistics, representing a variation of 296,840 unaccounted for pupils in the 116 local governments,” the statement said.

Finance also said their findings indicated a total of 10,563 schools, against the education ministry’s 10,595, implying that there were 32 unaccounted for schools (ghosts).

 Verification by Mwalimu, including visiting the so-called ‘ghost’ schools and corroborating the list of nonexistent schools published by finance with Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) data, came up with startling revelations.

For instance, a random check on the UNEB list of registered centre numbers did not find the following schools; Kabiriizi, Waceeba and Rukore primary schools in Kabale district.

The same schools are listed by finance as ghost. Also listed as ghosts and missing from UNEB are Kaniabiso primary school in Kanungu; Buwunde P.S, Zzimwe Cope PS and St. Mbaaga Mulema PS all in Masaka district.

More confusion

Finance further said information submitted by the district accounting officers reflected a total of 191 UPE schools not captured in the education ministry management information system (EMIS) while another 112 primary schools in the local government databases were not reflected in EMIS.

Finance has since withheld release of the capitation grants to the disputed schools until the discrepancies are sorted out.

An investigation by Mwalimu discovered that some of the schools, whose existence is being queried by finance, indeed exist while there are others in the finance list, but which the districts also dispute.

For instance, finance reported five schools (Masindi CH, Kabuki P/S, Nakasuwa P/S, Namadudu P/S and St. Peters Wangado) in Masindi district local government database, that are not reflected in the education ministry’s database.

However, basing on Masindi district’s education official list that it claims to have sent to finance, the schools in question do not exist in Masindi.

Big question; who inserted them on the list?

Masindi DEO, Francis Kyomuhendo, says the district did not submit a list with such names. “There are no schools with such names in this area and they have never featured in our database. They are not on the list we submitted to finance ministry,” he says.

Deliberate mistakes?
 

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A survey by Mwalimu found that most of the disputed schools have either changed names, which names have not been updated on the district as well as the EMIS database or the orders of the school names have simply been changed.

For instance, St. Kizito Bwikara Parents Primary school in Kibaale district has an enrollment of 180 pupils though the initial enrollment at the beginning of the year was 350 according to documents from the head teacher’s office.

Though the school was established by the area residents in 1990, it was first registered as Bwikara Parents and later renamed by the Catholic Church after Bwikara attained a parish status a few years ago.

But the Kibaale DEO John Kyaboona says there should be no cause for alarm because these are two schools spelt differently by the education ministry and the district.

The right names of the schools, he says, are St. Peter’s Buronzi and St. Kizito Bwikara Parents.

“These are the names I submitted to finance in May. It is possible for one to write these names differently because they copy the names from one paper to another,” he added.

Kyaboona explains that St. Peter’s Buronzi and St. Kizito Bwikara Parents are the right schools that have been receiving capitation grant.

Kyomuhendo also says variations in spelling of the names of schools could also be a source of the discrepancies raised by finance ministry.

“We need to be cautious because simple variations in spellings between EMIS and local governments can cause confusion and give an impression that they are different schools,” he adds.

In Masindi, while the Masindi Center for the Handicapped appears in the education ministry’s database, it is not known whether it is the same as a school abbreviated as Msd Center for Hand’ped P/S UPE with an enrollment of 122 pupils.

The head teacher, Eseri Kaija, told Mwalimu they have 16 teachers on the payroll and they also offers vocational studies and a nursery section with 62 boys and 60 girls.

But finance says data from the district put the total enrollment 62 pupils which conflicts with EMIS 2012 figure of 113 pupils.

DEOs speak out

Some DEOs have however, questioned the accuracy of the list being used by finance saying local governments were given only two days to submit data on enrollment figures and the number of UPE schools.

The Mubende assistant DEO Steven Kakeeto blames the discrepancies on the finance ministry which demanded for the information at a short notice.

“The directive came on a Tuesday and they wanted information on Thursday in May; and that means we had one day to submit,” he says.

Due to a very tight deadline for a directive that required head teachers to count the numbers of pupils and schools, Kakeeto says, many of the school heads were unable to compile the data.
 

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“If you get on the ground, you will realise that all these schools being queried actually exist,” he adds. Kakeeto explains that there are some schools that almost share names, with slight differences in the wording, because they are located in one area.

“Someone who is not very careful may think such schools appear twice in the data,” he explains.

Kakeeto also says there are schools that are located in Mityana district which are still considered to be in Mubende district, in the education ministry’s database.

Mityana was curved out of Mubende. The Jinja DEO, Lilian Achieng says all the schools queried in Jinja exist save for variations in the spelling of their names as captured in EMIS and the district data base.

“We have all those schools that are being questioned much as there are spelling mistakes. I don’t know where the spelling mistakes came from,” she adds.

The Gulu DEO, Rev. Vincent Ochieng Ochen says the decision by the finance ministry not to share the district information with the education ministry before raising the queries, is the cause of the current confusion.

“We have actually written to the ministry (finance) to try to correct the impression it has caused. The information the ministry of education has is the same we have, and now the ball is in their (education and finance) court,” he added.

The Kasese DEO George Mainja wonders how schools can exist in the education ministry database and not in the district’s data system.

He says they have written to the finance ministry asking them to correct the mistakes reflected in the list it published in the press.

“We have written to them clarifying that all the schools they are querying exist. They should find the cause of the errors because I am sure the education ministry and Kasese have the same information,” he added. 

Confidential sources

Confidential sources, however, said the errors could be by design rather than mistake simply to defraud the public.

“For instance, if a school has changed a name, the new name is captured as a new school and the corrupt officials who are usually a network continue receiving the money,” said an official.

With a suspected number of ghost pupils at 296,840, the corrupt officials could have been pocketing over sh2.2b a year.

The Government pays annual capitation grant of sh7,560 per pupil though the figure had dropped to sh5,516. That translates to a loss of almost sh27b, enough money to tarmac 27kms of road or the distance from Kampala to beyond Mukono. The amount excludes money lost to the “ghost” teachers in these schools.

Ministry of Education responds

The education ministry has also faulted her sister ministry for comparing education ministry management information system data with a set of data that was hurriedly collected.
 

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“Somebody in finance cannot understand the education sector better than someone in the education ministry, and that is the mistake they are making,” argued Joseph Eilor, the education ministry assistant commissioner in charge of statistics, monitoring and evaluation.

“We all went to school and we know data collected at different times cannot be the same,” he added.

He, however, says sometimes discrepancies arise in the number of schools and enrollment figures due to the overlap between the school year and financial year. Schools are run on the calendar year that begins in January and ends in December while a new financial year begins on July 1.

A government budget is read in June in preparation for the new fiscal year. This means a new financial year begins six months behind a school year.

Eilor says all school activities including the data collection must be carried out within the calendar year.

The ministry, he says, carries out annual school census to establish the number of pupils and students in public and private schools and head count exercises in private and public schools running free primary education and post primary free education (UPONET) between March and June each year.

 Eilor explains that the overlap between the calendar year and financial year creates a time lag of one year; and that this creates challenges in planning for the education ministry.

“A new fiscal year begins when a school year is already running and the financial year ends when schools are in another calendar year and the cycle continues,” he says.

Data collected by the ministry each calendar year between March and June, he says, is usually available for use in August when a new financial is already ahead by one month.

“This means the finance ministry does not use the latest data when planning and allocating money to the education ministry. It uses data of the previous years to plan.”

He adds: “For example the information, the finance ministry used for the current budget (2014/2015), was collected in 2012. They compared this date with the fresh data from local governments [which raised some of this confusion].”

The education ministry argues that the latest data collected by the district accounting officers this year, cannot be the same as the information submitted by the education ministry to finance in August 2012.

“We are all right; and the only difference is that data was collected at different times. New schools are opened and new children are enrolled into the school system each year,” Eilor explains.

He adds that the district local governments’ fresh data is based on attendance, since it was collected when the school year had already started.

“Our data is collected at the beginning of the year in the first week and it’s based on admission. They are failing to understand that school attendance is affected by a number of factors.”

He also explains that there is no guarantee that the district accounting officers can submit accurate information especially when they are responding to a directive.

“Others can go to their archives and submit what they have in their records. They (districts) are the same people who collect our data and the only difference is that our data is certified by all local governments, DEOs and school inspectors,” Eilor adds.

He says there is no any motivation for the ministry to submit wrong figures on enrollment and schools, because it does not receive capitation funds directly.

“Finance pays schools directly. We don’t even collect data and if anything is being suspected, the districts should be the ones to explain. I do not know who certified data provided by the accounting officers,” Eilor said.

“This makes the education ministry look inefficient, which is wrong.”

Finance ministry hits back
 

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The secretary to treasury, Keith Muhakanizi

But the secretary to treasury, Keith Muhakanizi, doesn’t buy the education ministry’s explanation.

“Noooooo… Don’t let those people confuse you. Just ask them to confirm if those schools exist or not. Even if the problem is the overlap in the financial and school year, the existence or non-existence of these schools can still be confirmed.”

“A school cannot just close. What we want them (education ministry) to confirm is that this information is wrong or that these schools exist,” Muhakanizi says.

Kenneth Mugambe, the head of budgeting in the finance ministry, says: “They [education ministry] are fooling you. We are talking about physical schools and not numbers. How many schools close each year in your district? Does it make sense?

“You mean your schools change every year? Have you heard Buganda Primary school changing to Bat Valley? What they are telling you is total rubbish!”

Mugambe says the district accounting officers started submitting the data in March, “A new school can come up but one does not close each year,” he adds.

The finance ministry, he says, compared information from the local governments with information in EMIS.

“These schools have been on their lists for years. But this time we decided to verify with the district accounting officers. We have always had problems with figures from the education ministry,” he added.

(Reporting by Pascal Kwesiga, Geoffery Mutegeki and Ismail Kasooha)


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