Exams & Student's Video (Mar '11)

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Exams

The first batch of pupils, who joined the school in February 2007 when it started classes, has now left. A total of 94 students sat the national Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams in November last year. The results were published in March this year, and Got Matar was ranked 7th out of the 16 “District” Secondary Schools in Bondo, and came in above one of the 9 more established “Provincial” schools. Out of the total of 25 schools in the rankings, Got Matar was fifth in the number of pupils taking the exams.

There is clearly a lot of room for improving the quality of education, but the general view is that this is a very satisfactory first set of results.

Bursaries

From the outset of the venture, the Community and I agreed that special arrangements should be made to enable children from the poorest families in the community – especially orphans – to attend the school. The Community’s goal is to eventually fund bursaries from income generating-cum-training enterprises, but it will take time for these to produce enough income. In the meantime, I hope that we can find sponsors for 40 new bursaries each year, enabling 160 of the school’s 600 students to study free of charge. This year the FAO 1% Fund generously sponsored 25 girls for their full four year stay at the school, which was a great boost.

The 42 new Form 1 bursary students got together to thank the Fund in a video that you can see here:

Bursaries now cost Euro 150 (£135, US215) per year. The Community has opened up a deposit account for accepting up-front payments for individual students for the full 4 year course (Euro 600 equivalent). They will make payments from this to the school each term, greatly simplifying financial management, and making it easier to pair sponsors and students. I hope that we can persuade more people to support the bursary programme, especially with up-front payments.

New Construction

The top investment priority for the school this year is to construct the girls dormitory. Preliminary designs, prepared by the Australian NGO, Bricks and Cartwheels, were recently endorsed by the school after discussions with the girls. The Community and B&C have agreed that the construction process should be used to train local people in building skills. Once the school has this dormitory, it will provide for girls who, apart from being scared about walking to and from the school in the dark, will also find it protects them from the many demands on their time when they stay at home. Even now, some 90 girls are overnighting in the classrooms, which is far from satisfactory.

Other building requirements include some housing on the spot for teaching staff and a school office. There may also be a need to invest in upgrading teaching skills.

Institute of Technology

Now that most of the essential construction for the school has been completed, the Community has turned increasing attention to the development of the nascent Institute of Technology (IoT), adjacent to the school site. The idea is that it should eventually offer a wide range of vocational training opportunities for adults in the community, including school leavers who do not wish to continue their formal education. Once each course gets up and running, the intent is that it should pay for itself through the sale of goods and services, and, hopefully eventually generate profits that can fund bursaries to enable poor children to attend the secondary school. Each course will have a 2-year duration and successful students will be awarded certificates. The first course to start was for sewing, dress-making and tailoring, that began on 1st June 2010 (with 20 trainees). In September, training in woodwork began (8), while in December 2 parallel classes in nutrition, cooking and catering began operation (50). Each course, run by well qualified locally recruited trainers, is conducted in rented buildings

Women's Centre

In December the construction of a Women’s Centre, that forms part of the IoT, was completed with funding from the UK-based Chave Collison Trust. Additional funding has now been arranged for furnishing and fittings, including a link to the electricity mains supply. The Centre will be used for counselling and training and will also house the Community computer centre, that, once provided with 5 computers, will be run both for training and service provision. The chairs and tables for the Centre will be made by the woodwork course members, whereas the sewing group will make curtains.

One of the problems the groups face is that the local market in Bondo District is quite restricted because of the extreme poverty in the area. We have, therefore, begun to explore options for engaging with the UK fair trade movement, beginning with clothes. If any readers know of any fair trade businesses that might be interested in establishing links with Got Matar, please let me know!

Water Supply

With professional help. The Community has completed a study for a drinking water supply system to meet the needs of its almost 10,000 residents. The system will be supplied with filtered water, pumped from Lake Victoria, about 6 km from the school. The potential health benefits, especially for young children, would be very high. However, the costs (about Euro 1 million), are out of the range of the current group of supporters, so we shall have to explore other financing options!