About our Project

School performance 

• The school currently has a pass rate of 18%. Pre-covid the school had a pass rate between 30 and 50% 
• The school had a 13% dropout rate and is losing between 10 and 20 learners a year 
• Approximately 20 new learners are joining the school each year  

Challenges identified at the school include: 

• Teacher morale at the school is very low. The school is currently understaffed, the teachers are underpaid, overworked and not happy with the living and working conditions at the school.  
• Learners are not receiving enough focused and quality learning time at school. learners are sharing  
• classrooms, learning materials and teachers with other learners and grades which results in not enough focused attention and investment being provided to each grade 
• Learners that are coming to school hungry; many are travelling long distances to school by foot and are learning on an empty stomach. 

Our long-term goal for the school and the impact we want to have 

We aim to address the challenges identified at Mambanje school in three phases:   

Phase 1: 0-18 months  

• Improving school facilities: Fixing solar, and boreholes, reviving the school garden and the orchard, fixing windows and desks, furnishing the school (desks and chairs for the learners) with additional computer equipment, restoring the network connection at the school 
• Improving teacher accommodation: fixing doors and windows, getting water and electricity into the cottage  
• Improving learner performance and attendance: reviving the feeding scheme, learning materials books and textbooks 

Phase 2: 18-36 months 

• Teachers: Improving morale (knock-on effect from addressing phase 1) 
• Teachers: support and develop existing and new teachers at and for the school 
• Teacher salaries  
• Learners: Focused and quality learning and education (increasing resourcing at the school) 

Phase 3: 36-54 months  

• Supplementary programs: Initiatives and programs to support and assist the school to be more self-sustaining   

Impact measurement and tracking  

• Teachers, learners, and infrastructure   
• Change/improvements in teacher morale (are teachers happy, are they staying, are they motivated) 
• Teacher performance and retention at the school (number of teachers joining and leaving, quality of teaching, training, development, and growth) 
• Improvements made to school and accommodation (borehole, solar, classrooms, accommodation, garden etc.) 
• Learner performance (increase pass and progress rate, reduction in dropouts) 
• Feeding scheme (number of meals provided, improvement in school attendance and performance) 
• Sustainability at the school (ownership of school resources, supplementation programs to generate economic activity at the school and how they are progressing etc.)