A survey of school businesses has found a hopeless scramble to survive from coronavirus impact with an urgent call on government to help, write ALON MWESIGWA.
The Makerere University-based Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) says in its May 2021 published study that schools especially “private [ones]need government urgent help including provision of soft loans, government buying shares in schools or swift support on recurrent expenditures” if they are to have the slightest chance to survive.
On Sunday, President Museveni announced schools would be closed again for at least 42 days because of the new wave of coronavirus disease cases, extending their misery and cementing survival uncertainty.
The study, which is a special analysis of the small and medium business climate after tough lockdown between March and July 2020, says schools faced a remarkable low turnout of learners upon re-opening of schools. This meant delays in school fees payments, leading to contraction of revenues for almost all private schools.
“[We found] increased indebtedness, challenges in accessing supplies due to high cost while teachers have registered heavy salary cuts,” the study says.
On debt, the study reports that almost three quarters (seven out of ten) of schools reported financial hardships and need for support to stay in business.
“Most of the schools became more indebted to commercial banks by contracting new loans and/or acquiring overdrafts to resume operations,” the study says.
“Six in every ten schools interviewed reported to have had debt before the pandemic outbreak. The increased indebtedness of schools implies recovery might take longer as they will have to deal with loan repayment for some time.”
Majority schools that had accumulated some savings before the pandemic also depleted them to meet operating costs and provide facilities required to implement the SOPs. The latest closure is akin to taking one step forward and two backwards.
“This undermines investment in the expansion of schools and provision of better learning facilities (such as reading materials, information technology, and laboratory equipment), which has broad implications on human capital quality,” researchers said.
With these survey results, the latest spike in cases leading to some schools to shut again, confirms one thing: irredeemable reverse in the education sector as it may take years to get back to pre-pandemic days. Government has asked parents to wait paying fees until it is clear about the next move.
While vaccinations had been hoped to give a lifeline to many businesses, low volumes and reluctancy together with the resurgence of the new cases mean many will never come back to business.
Many schools had opened with fewer staff, the study says, which has adverse implications on the welfare of the teachers who were not recalled, as most schools indicated that these were not being paid. The percentage of female staff that was recalled was higher than that for men by 10 percentage points, researchers indicate.
Schools had re-opened with just 69 per cent of the original staff, implying 31 per cent of the staff were not recalled upon re-opening. The percentage of non-teaching staff that were recalled was slightly higher than that of the teaching staff, the study says.
With the second closure of schools, these numbers will just go up on opening after 42 days. The impact will be more misery.
“Schools that had accumulated some savings before the pandemic also depleted them to meet operating costs and provide facilities required to implement the SOPs,” the study says.
“This undermines investment in the expansion of schools and provision of better learning facilities (such as read- ing materials, information technology, and laboratory equipment), which has broad implications on human capital quality.”
On payment of salaries, the study reveals that schools “adopted salary reduction as one of the strategies to survive.”
It says: “Seventeen in every twenty schools (85%) surveyed reported not paying full salary for their teachers due to financial challenges. Some schools adopted working modalities for teachers’ remuneration, such as paying per term, per week or per lesson rather than the previous monthly payment.”
Overall, estimates show that schools were paying about 52 per cent of teachers’ original salaries, the study says, which has forced teachers to look for alternative sources of livelihood to supplement the wage.
“This, however, has implications on their efficiency at school and, ultimately, the quality of learning. At individual level, the low wage has resulted in coping strategies such as reducing food consumption, which negatively affects their welfare.”
This latest closure means majority teachers in private schools will not receive any payments. Government-aided schools have not been spared either. Joseph Okedi, the director of studies, at Nsambya primary school said in the first lockdown, “the school had been servicing a loan, and once the school was not able to generate from school fees, things were easy as the banks still expected us to pay”.
“We had to run up and down to really see who could help,” he said. He added that teachers were forced to take their families to the villages while other opted for menial jobs like bricklaying and boda boda riding.
Teachers in government schools, who are not on the payrolls, are the hardest hit with many not having received payment for almost a year. Other teachers said they were processing travel documents to go to the Middle East to look for jobs.
This article was first published in Observer Newspaper in June 2021