He built a Sh4b school from 10m house

Jun 04, 2014

Peter Mutebi is the director of Train Up a Child Nursery and Primary School, a high-end local school catering for Kampala’s well-heeled inhabitants. With a population of about 1,200 pupils, this sh4b school, located in Kampala’s upscale Bugolobi neighbourhood, is one

 Peter Mutebi is the director of Train Up a Child Nursery and Primary School, a high-end local school catering for Kampala’s well-heeled inhabitants. With a population of about 1,200 pupils, this sh4b school, located in Kampala’s upscale Bugolobi neighbourhood, is one of the fastest growing private primary schools in the country.

The school has not always been what it is. Mutebi was not even looking to start a school in the first place. Responding to pleas from parents in his neighbourhood, he started a small nursery school in his residential house with only a handful of pupils in the mid- 1990s. But through sheer commitment and hard work, he has weathered the toughest of situations just to get to where he is today, writes MICHAEL KANAABI

Background

Peter Mutebi was born in Kampala. He attended Buganda Road Primary School, Ndejje Secondary School for Ordinary Level and Kampala High School (Aga Khan High School today) for Advanced Level. He immediately joined the garments trade, dealing mainly in second-hand clothes, which he bought from traders in Kampala and sold upcountry and later to DR Congo (then Zaire).

As the business grew, Mutebi and his colleagues started going to Nairobi and other places to buy the items. In 1987, after accumulating some savings from the business, Mutebi bought a three-bedroom bungalow on Plot 33B, Luthuli Drive, Bugolobi for sh10m.

That time, he recalls, the houses were cheaper because the area had not yet gained the value it has today. He paid up in instalments completing in 1989.

Getting in the school business

Mutebi traces his entry into the education business back to 1994 when he had just returned from his undergraduate studies in theology at Oral Roberts University, an interdenominational Christian liberal arts university in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.

He had studied on a scholarship that he had acquired with the help of Balaki Kirya, then a cabinet minister. While leaving for his studies, Mutebi had rented out his house to a female friend, Margaret Othieno who had since set up a small nursery school.

Upon his return to Uganda, Othieno who still needed to use Mutebi’s house for her nursery school, looked for, found and rented an alternative house where Mutebi and his wife, Rebecca would stay in the meantime. However, she soon realised that paying rent for another house for the Mutebis was too costly and not sustainable. In 1995, she decided to give back the house to Mutebi and shift her nursery school to Kitintale.

Fearing the inconvenience the change of school would have on them and their children, a number of parents, mainly from Bugolobi flats and the neighbouring areas, Othieno approached and encouraged Mutebi and his wife to keep the school operational in those very same premises.

Parents found the place convenient because Peter Mutebi initially built Train Up a Child Nursery and Primary School for the Bugolobi community it was close to their homes.

Although Mutebi had not been keen on the idea, he agreed to maintain the nursery school in the house. The nursery was divided into three classes; baby, middle and top class.

Starting the school in earnest

The same year, with 51 children, the couple, with the help of their house help, Joy, started the school in earnest. They turned the servants’ quarters into classrooms to accommodate more children.

Their biggest challenge then was limited resources. The cash flow was limited because some of the children from less advantaged homes around the Kitintale slums could barely pay fees. The Mutebis had to rely on parents who could pay the school fees but that money was not enough to sustain the school.

Two years down the road, Mutebi and his wife borrowed sh3.8m from then Uganda Women’s Finance Trust Ltd (now Finance Trust Bank) to grow the school.

FROM HIS SITTING ROOM, MUTEBI BUILT A SH4B SCHOOL

They used this money to set up temporary structures which they used until 2001. While all this went on, Mutebi spend part of his time, especially summer, back at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, pursuing a master’s degree in post-secondary school education management.

However, this time round, he sponsored himself. Mutebi got the money for the programme from his trade in stationery and other merchandise. His studies also helped him enhance his skills in the administration of educational institutions, which he used in his school although his focus at master’s level was on post-secondary school institutions, management.

The going gets tough

After his studies, Mutebi was determined to expand the school. He wanted to turn it into a successful and more competitive primary school.

Using the meagre earnings from his stationery trade and the school, he started off by breaking down their small house and, in the same place, built the school’s current fourstoreyed main block in 2001. However, the project turned out to be more costly than he had expected. Being a storeyed building on a hill slope, the foundation required more expensive materials to strengthen it.

Mutebi was forced to abandon the project in the short‑term. He decided to, instead, build a smaller classroom block on a flat landscape, which he knew he would complete faster and at a much less cost. Today, this block houses three classrooms. In 2003, Mutebi decided to upgrade the school to a fully-fledged primary school and registered it with the Ministry of Education and Sports as Train Up a Child Nursery and Primary School.

He also acquired a Uganda National Examinations Board centre number. By this time, the ground floor of the main building, which he had abandoned two years back, was complete so, using boards and curtain, they partitioned it to create more classrooms. But they still faced a challenge of meeting operational costs and paying teachers’ salaries. In 2004, Mutebi gave up on the school because it consistently failed to generate enough returns to meet its financial obligations. He decided to hand it over to the teachers and administration to run it.

The arrangement to recoup some of their pay, benefits and also generate revenue to keep the school running if possible.

Repossessing the school

During this time, Mutebi decided to grow his stationery business on Nassar Road by diversifying into printing. Dfcu Bank, through their asset-financing scheme, leased him a printing press at sh75m. “When the printing business started picking up and bringing in reasonably high returns, I started rethinking the arrangement I had entered into with my teachers to run the school on my behalf. I made up my mind at once to repossess my school,” So, Mutebi decided to get the profits from this thriving business and reinvest them in the school.

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Train Up a Child Nursery and Primary School main building in Bugolobi Photos by Ronnie Kijjambu

The years between 2004 and 2009 were the toughest as Mutebi struggled to grow the school, primarily from proceeds from his other business. He was trying as much as possible to avoid getting into external financing.

Road to paradise

In 2009, National Housing and Construction Corporation divested itself of Bugolobi flats. The flats, which shared a fence with Train Up A Child Nursery and Primary School and had multiple access points, were subsequently fenced off and left with only one entry point which was very far from the school.

This adversely affected the school population because the majority of the pupils came from the flats and the reason their parents brought them to the school was because of easy access. Now that it was harder to access the school, most parents would look for schools which were nearer to their blocks.

This meant that Mutebi had to get more creative to keep his school competitive and growing. First he had to acquire buses to transport pupils to and from their respective home.

On top of that, he decided that if he was to truly make a palpable impact, it was high time he revived his massive infrastructure facelift plan and finally got it underway. But these were massive developments and investments and to pull them off, Mutebi required external financing. “I took a sh300m loan from Bank of Baroda using the school as security.

With this money, I acquired the first mini bus for the school (which has since been sold off and replaced). I then started building the main building faster and more effectively than before because there was a steady flow of money,” he recalls. It soon became apparent that there were parents who were so busy during the week and had challenges bringing their children to school in the morning and picking them up in the evening daily.

There were also those who, because of their busy schedule, did not find time to supervise their children’s homework effectively. In 2011, Mutebi established a boarding school section to cater for this group. “With the establishment of the boarding section, we had to increase our school fees to meet the fast-rising costs of running the school. For example, day scholars were required to pay sh300,000, up from sh100,000 while we fixed the boarding school fees at sh500,000. “Unfortunately, some of the parents took their children away. But this was the cost of establishing good facilitates and growing the school.

Their moving on fortunately only paved way to new parents, who had the ability to sustain their children in our school,” Mutebi says. He adds that currently the school charges sh350,000 for pupils in nursery school, sh400,000 from P.1 to P.4 and sh450,000 from P.5 to P.7. “We also charge sh700,00 for the boarding section,” Mutebi says.

Reaching his desired goal

The construction of the school’s main block also started moving much faster until December 2013 when the top floor of the building was finally completed. It currently accommodates all the middle–school classes, library, computer laboratory and dormitories for the pupils. “The number of buses, which we bought to transport our pupils from their homes to school and back also went up from one in 2009 to five today.

All these developments have been financed by and were done in response to the increasing pupil population,” Mutebi says. Today, Train Up a Child Nursery and Primary School is worth about sh3b. If one considers the goodwill of the school’s name, its successes and land among other assets, it is estimated to have a total market value of close to sh4b.

Other businesses

Mutebi has also diversified into fuel, dealing with a petrol station in Busega. He set this up in 2009. His stationery business on Nasser Road has grown over time. Mutebi now runs a large store selling assorted stationery items. He also owns a fully established printer on Nasser Road

Future plans

Mutebi is looking at growing the school’s enrolment from the current 1,200 to 3,000 pupils in the next five years. “Since we have limited space, I would like to utilise the little we have by putting up more storeyed buildings so that we can accommodate more pupils as the school is growing fast,” he says. “We want to expand the computer laboratory, library and improve the amount and quality of resources available in the library.” He says they are also planning to set up off-sight campuses in other Kampala suburbs, Mpigi, Wakiso and Mukono to serve other communities. With the increased number of pupils, Mutebi says they will require more school buses.

The school is also looking at starting learning tour programmes in conjunction with other schools abroad where they can take their pupils to learn about new cultures and share with children in other education systems in order to improve their learning and exposure. 

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Pupils during a lesson at Train Up a Child Nursery and Primary School
 

Challenges  

A school this big comes with its own trials. Top among these, Mutebi says, is the delay in the payment of school fees by some parents whom he says are also not keen on providing their children with all the necessary school requirements yet they expect the school to give the pupils 100% service. “This leaves the school cash-strapped and negatively affects our ability to deliver services to their expectations,” Mutebi says. Some parents do not get involved in their children’s education enough to supervise them while doing homework.

This generally demotivates children and ultimately leads to a drop in theirs and the school’s general academic performance. We are growing at a faster rate than expected but we have limited space for expansion of our facilities to meet future growth needs 

Your views

Godfrey Kyeswa, a parent and business associate Mutebi has done a lot for the school in terms of academics. I took my child there when his grades were poor but they have gradually gone up. I think another reason behind this is that the teachers give the children a lot of personal attention. Enoch Kyaze, a parent My first child is currently in S.2, he was not performing so well when I brought him to Train Up a Child but they managed to get a first grade out of him in his Primary Leaving Examinations

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