Empowering South Sudan's Schools: Key Insights from IRDF's Capacity Enhancing Webinar
Empowering South Sudan's Schools: Key Insights from IRDF's Capacity Enhancing Webinar
By Sr. Henriette Anne, FSSA
At a virtual meeting, hosted by Infinite Research and Development Firm (IRDF)- JUBA, which targeted school founders, stakeholders, board of governors, administrators, and teachers in South Sudan, empowered the participants on how to successfully grow and run schools through good governance.
Dr. David Fugoyo BAIME, the guest speaker and initiator of the meeting emphasized to the participants the importance of understanding the reason behind the establishment of a school.
“Why did you establish that school? I want you always to reflect on why you established that school, the reason behind the establishment of the school is always a very important question just to keep in mind if you tend to forget this question or the reason for which you established the school you will always lose the track, you will always see on simply things that you are not supposed to, so, keep that question always with you, let it be the question you always ask yourself, it will help you not forget the reason for which you established the school and if you know the reason, always remind yourself of it to help you move on the right track”
In the training themed, “Capacity Enhancing Webinar for Schools,” Mr. David enlightened the participants that location, name and naming, vision and mission, values, branding, staff, Infrastructure, and environment, are key areas to consider when establishing a school.
“Key areas to consider when you are establishing or managing a school, are location, is it located in the place that would allow you to achieve what you wanted to achieve, what is the name of the school, why did you name the school the way it is, sometimes names attract or repel people, it can bring in people or send people away, Naming, is it positive or attractive? Mission and vision, are they clear and relevant, without mission and vision, the school will be aimless, values, what do you stand for? Having qualified teaching and non-teaching staff, we are fond of bringing our relatives, they have to be qualified, environment, is it conducive, always consider the environment to give you an easy time, and finally, branding i.e logo, color, motto, let them say something about you”.
The over ten participants who attended the meeting were reminded of what to consider for the growth of a school. 1. Quality of your product, if you want your school to grow, don’t just look into now, or what kind of product you are producing but focus on what kind of product you want to have, focus on your pupils or students, what kind of students do you want to see when they graduate from your school? 2. Consider management of resources, not every school that is struggling financially now is supposed to be struggling, some of the financial struggles that we have are just because we do not know how to manage the little resources that we have, have plans, and spend money where it is only critical, remember transparency and integrity when dealing with finance, if you do the right thing, parents and staff will trust you. 3. Clear chain of command /procedures. It has to be clear who is the head of the school and who is following who, if nothing is clear there will be confusion in the school. And also, clear procedures which come in terms of policies. 4. Partnership. It is not necessarily with people who are giving you money, it can be having like-minded schools for sharing ideas, learning from each other, and having readiness/ zeal to compete with others. 5. Qualified Board Members. Do not run a school unilaterally, the board members must have a meeting to assess the progress of the school. 6. Marketing. Any school must have a marketing team, who will make known the school.
Speaking about marketers Dr. David stressed that handling teachers, parents, passersby, and support staff well is important since they can market the school.
On the other hand, one of the participants, Mrs. Adba Lucy appealed to all members of the private school to form an association where they can address their common challenges.
“I have an appeal to all the private schools in Yambio here today, Can we come up with a Private schools Association where we can address common challenges facing us from the source we look to(SMoE)? e.g. one time we were required to pay fire insurance fee to the ministry of Education! so we question them if State Ministry of Education has turned to Insurance company? then they removed that policy off”.
