Building a school in Africa

Posted by Winnie Melda on November 2nd, 2018

Proposal statement

The project involves building a primary school in Turkana, Kenya. The sponsor is MasterCard Foundation, which is a foundation that partners with non-profit organizations to improve access to education, financial products and services, and skills training. The project aims at providing children with an opportunity to acquire education.

In Turkana, the population makeup includes 20% agro-pastoralists, 60% pastoralists, 8% employed, and 12% fishers. The population in Turkana is 850,000 people (Turkana County 2015). The adult literacy can be considered as 70 of 100 adults cannot be able to read or write in any language. That means that there are more than 85% people who are illiterate.

Education in Turkana tends to be unique. The nomadic lifestyle of the Turkana communication, chronic poverty, recurrent droughts, high illiteracy levels among adults, and the lack of awareness of the value of education among parents tend to disrupt the education of children. About 50% of primary school-aged children in Turkana are enrolled in school (Turkana County 2015). In Turkana, early marriages are prevalent; hence, the rate of dropout for girls is very high. Boys also drop put so as to attend to the family herds (Ikamari & Lawrence 2005).

Resources in Turkana County are scarce, and as a result, the county does not have good education facilities. Turkana has an attachment to livestock, which is sometimes at the expense of the children’s right to education. The dependence on livestock does not usually guarantee livelihood, and there are high levels of poverty in Turkana. There are times that drought can wipe out a whole herd and leave families with no source of income and food. When faced with such need for survival, education usually comes last. Therefore, by building a school for these children, it will be of great benefit to children and parents as it will provide them with an opportunity of acquiring a quality education (Ikamari & Lawrence 2005).

Although Kenya provides free primary education, the initiative has not helped in making sure that Turkana children attend school (Sifuna, 2008). With the rate of poverty in Turkana, most parents do not consider education as the priority for their children. Hence, most children stay at home as they help with other activities. For those schools that are available in Turkana, there is very few that have the necessary facilities for teaching. Children lack books, pencils, teachers, and even a building where they can get an education (Knodel, 1997). Therefore, as this project aim to build a school for children in Turkana, it will help create awareness of the importance of education for children. It will also reduce some expenses such as books, food, and uniform, which most parents cannot afford.

Country Analysis

Before building a school in Kenya, it is necessary to evaluate different aspects of the country. Kenya is a country in Africa, and it is the founding member of the East African community. Kenya usually maintains relations with numerous countries around the world. The country has political ties with India, China, Brazil, and Russia. Technology in Kenya is growing where access to internet connection is extremely high. The Kenyan industries have been able to adopt the technology, which has given rise to all sort of tech-start-ups and it has been able to see the potential that technology has in filling the gaps which the developing countries tend to face (Knodel, 1997). Kenya tends to be the biggest and the most advanced economy in the east and central Africa. The country is classified as a frontier market. The economy is the country has been expanding and has strong performances in higher education, performance, and telecommunication.

In Turkana, it leads in Kenya with poor people living 67.5% adrift of the poverty line. There are about 380 primary schools, 35 secondary schools, and one medical training center in the county (Sifuna, 2008). The opportunity for the secondary education tends to be limited as most of the primary school children usually, depend on bursaries so as to access higher education.

Management

When planning for the project, it will be under the management of the lead project manager. When planning the project, the appropriate leadership style will be participative leadership. In this form of leadership, it is based on mutual respect and allows for collaboration between the leaders and the people that they guide. Therefore, the project manager must use participative leadership style so as to make sure that most of the stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process (Kreitner, 2008). The project members, community, and the sponsors will participate in the decision-making process so as to ensure that the different ideas are implemented during the project. The structure of this project will be under the leadership of the project manager. The project manager will identify the supervisor who will be responsible for managing the workers. The project manager will work together with the supervisors to make sure that the project is performing as expected. It is the responsibility of the supervisor to allocate jobs to the workers so that workers are aware of what they must do. The supervisor will be providing the project manager with reports on how the project is performing and what they have accomplished so far.

Project steps

The first step in this project is explaining the project plan to the key stakeholders and also its key components. The next step involves defining the roles and responsibilities including the project sponsor, project manager, project team, and the end users. The third step is to develop a scope statement that describes the outcome of the project. The fourth step is developing cost baselines and schedule. The fifth step is to develop a staffing plan, and the final step is communicating. The staffing plan aims to show the time periods that each resource will come onto and leave the project.

Project schedule estimate

Risk assessment

Turkana tends to be a place where there are usually clashes from cattle raids. In this case, it tends to affect the education of students and teachers are also afraid of going to school during such incidents. Therefore, so as to reduce the incident of the clashes affecting the education of students, the project will consider enhancing security in the school. The school will be well fenced and include officers who will help to ensure that students and teachers are in a safe environment. The teachers will also receive good housing within the school compound to make sure that they can access the school easily.

Reference

Turkana County (2015). Overview of Turkana County.

Ikamari, D & Lawrence E (2005). The effect of education on the timing of marriage in Kenya. Demographic Research 12 (1)

Knodel, J (1997). The Closing of the Gender Gap in Schooling: The Case of Thailand. Journal of Comparative Education 33(1)

Sifuna, N (2008). Universalizing Primary Education in Kenya: Is it Beneficial and Sustainable? Journal of International Cooperation in Education, 11(3)

Kreitner, R (2008). Principles of management. Cengage Learning

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in college research paper services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for best essay services online.