A brief about term one 2017

Dear Henry and Irene,
Allow me to give you a brief about the term that ended successfully on 28th May 2017. By 9:00am all students had received their report forms and left for holidays. At school, about 19 students remained, 5 are at my home and the rest to their real homes, friends, relatives etc. It was one of the most challenging terms, in which the prices of almost every consumable and scholastic material more than doubled. So, much of the income went to feeding and scholastics. The commission also delayed registration of candidates, and later increased the fees due to increase in their operation costs. In Uganda, most business schools have increased fees for next term as a means of covering operational costs, but reports have it that last term registered the highest number of school dropouts in the country, due to parents‘ failure to raise school fees and then other costs like registration fees. This is hoped to worsen in the coming term.

THE STATUS OF REGISTRATION:

we are happy to report that with the support from Henry and Irene, we were able to raise the registration fees for all the candidates. 160 qualified for S.4 and we expect to register 73 S.6 candidates. All information about S.4 candidates is ready for submission, though we can’t upload them due to commission errors you will find below, that is still limiting us. Three S.6 students are still not registered and have delayed our completion process. This is because they are still struggling to pay fees arrears at the schools where they attended S.4, to be able to give them documents to register for S.6 with us. However, this is not the major reason why we have not submitted data to be able to get receipts as we would probably leave them behind, but;

You can’t register students for the current year with any un cleared bills with the commission. As a system error, it was stated that one of our candidates of last year did an exam which she didn’t register for, and this would call for a fine of 50,000 per paper done(this year it was increased to 100,000 per paper). Our portal was therefore blocked until we paid it as you can see in the attachments. We have taken two weeks since we clarified with the commission that the student stated did not do any mistake, but they are slow at removing the error. I went back on Monday 8th, one office wrote to three other offices to have it rectified(see attachment) but they told us to keep checking our portal until it will be cleared, because they follows a list of schools with similar problems until ours will be reached.
They promised to clear the error by the end of the week or early next week. We will therefore send the receipts immediately we have uploaded the data.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

1. We were able to dig a shallow well and fixed a hand pump as another source of water.
2. We were able to pay the remaining arrears in construction we incurred in December 2016.
3. We paid salary arrears of 2016 and we closed the term with no standing arrears in salary. We will only open with May unpaid.
4. We received visitors from L.A.P.ev led by the president Mr. Heinrich Becker, who worked on electricity repairs, installation , brought us more laptops and trained students especially in tailoring. They also brought us a piano, preahed a word of God and other valuables.
5. We ran all exams and all students closed with reports with two sets of exams.
6. We had food throughout the term, with the help of Irene’s transfers, and local collection.
7. All amounts of sponsored teachers and students reached in time from Henry. In addition to local collection, we were able to repair many desks, bought other new ones and tables in the computer room.
8. We bought two new office wooden cabinets for storage of students academic documents as required by the commission.
9. We participated in football competitions, and emerged the zonal champions. We were unable to proceed to the district level, because of costs.
10. We bought most of the essential drugs and got a new nurse. Medicines were also much costly in the course of the term and we closed with nothing in stock!
11. We had a success rate of about 49% in availing students with uniforms as required by the commission. Uniform Costs also went up from 85,000 per student to 100,000 per student. Expansion of stoves is under way but construction of a proposed dorm could not start due to much rain.

CHALLENGES:

The biggest challenges were;

1. Failure of parents to pay school fees as expected.
2. Very high prices of food and other commodities, which are expected to rise even next term.
3. We secured laboratory equipment on credit, up to 14,237,200.
4. The commission report requiring a library room, books, permanent laboratory, dinning room, more staff quarters….

NEXT TERM

Next term will open on 22nd May, with the following major requirements

1. Fieldwork in geography (about 5.38 million) in agriculture (about 4.78million)
2. Art which must be submitted to the commission ( about 5.67 million)
3. More uniforms
4. Mock to the candidates (deadline 30th June) each candidate 30,000
   Among other usual requirements for the term.

EXPECTATIONS

1. We expect to participate in the exhibition of CBS radio in June, whose outcomes are expected to plaster the boys dormitories.
2. We expect to compete in music on 23rd July, at Kampala. We expect returns to work on the boys compound. There is a lot of mud which destroys cement inside.
3. In case of any saving (if prices reduce) we will buy materials for educate practicals.

We wish to thank you so much for your continued support, that has led us this far in terms of success and development. We pray for you and all donors.
With love,
Yours in Christ,
Ronald Mulondo
For St. Peters school.