Kamonyi school in financial turmoil

KAMONYI- Kayenzi Parents Secondary School (ESPK) is facing a financial crisis days after schools reopened for the first term. Sources said the school’s cash woes started last year and teachers withheld students’ academic reports demanding for the payment of their salary arrears, for the past four months. Charles Mutuyemungu, the school’s headmaster, confirmed that the students’ academic reports were withheld by teachers after failing to pay them. He, however, explained that the teachers were later paid arrears of at least three months. “We are handling the problem but teachers have refused to hand over the reports until their full arrears are paid. This has had a slight effect on continuing students and those moving to the next levels. We have been giving them recommendation letters according to their previous performances,” Mutuyemungu said. As schools reopened on Monday, the school registered a low students’ turn up. Students who spoke to the press said that many of their colleagues had not reported because they doubted whether they had been promoted or not. Other students expressed fear that their teachers could leave the school. “We are here to learn and it’s important to get our results at the end. We have not got any proper explanation to this effect, even when we were told that the reports will be given out during the Parents Teachers Meeting,” one of the students said. The school has an outstanding loan of Rwf300million from the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) and Bank of Kigali (BK). Most of the funds were reportedly used to construct more classrooms instead of paying teachers’ salaries. The headmaster says that the private school has just over 260 students, yet it has the capacity to accommodate over 800 students. He added with low students’ enrolment and low fee structure, the school cannot afford to meet its operation costs. He lamented that the Nine Year Basic Education has led many of his students to opt for free education.The Kamonyi District Advisory Council (DAC) had earlier advised the school administration to slash its expenses, number of teachers and to clear teachers’ salary arrears while servicing the bank loans. Ends