DISTRICT JOINT TRACKING EXERCISE REVEALS SERVICE DELIVERY “POTHOLES”.

On 16^th and 17^th September 2015 was a joint Vertical Tracking exercise that involved Ntoroko District leaders and Good Hope staff members took place in two lower local Governments of; Karugutu and Kanara Town councils targeting four Primary schools in each Town council and Two Health Centers. In general, Seven (7) schools and three Health centers were visited.

The exercise was aimed at jointly Tracking Sectoral Budgets allocations from the District level to the service delivery sites, and collecting and analyzing data from Schools and Health centers to ascertain the effectiveness of service delivery in the District and give necessary recommendations aimed at improving service delivery.

Good Hope Staff together with the District Health Educator, interviewing the Karugutu Health Centre IV Records Officer.

Among others, the District Health officer, District Education officer, District Inspector of schools, District Health Educator, Community Senior Development officer, and twelve community based monitors from the two Town councils participated at different levels in the exercise.

District Health Educator and CDO in The Karugutu Health Centre IV Records Office

Key findings from the Education and Health Departments;

Projects in the Education sector that require co-funding

According to the D.E.O, Since the Inception of Ntoroko District, the Central government has failed to support;

• Co-curricular activities like ball-games, athletics and MDD at district and National levels.
• School Facility Grants have barely been sufficient to put up enough classrooms, staff quarters and toilets.
•  To date, the District has failed to purchase a vehicle and motorcycles for the department of Education. These are some of the reasons why the academic performance has not been to the expected level.
• The department still needs co-funding in the area of Water facilities like Rain Water Harvesting tanks, bore holes and piped water.

Budget performance for the last 3 financial years

·         Because of under remittances from both Central Government and development partners like UNICEF and Save the Children International, The District was only able to achieve to an average of 96% of its budgets. In FY 2013/2014 there were cuts in SFG from over shs.700 millions to shs.190 millions, and UNICEF and Save the Children did not meet some of their commitments.

Challenges experienced by the District in meeting the policy goals on delivering the priorities of the Education sector

Inspector of Schools in-charge of Special needs Education, meeting Teachers at Brain Model Primary School in Kanara Town Council during the Vertical Tracking Exercise

•  Inadequate qualified Teachers in primary Schools (especially in the new curriculum) and secondary schools (especially in areas of English language and Sciences).

•     Under staffing in DEO’s office
•       Inadequate Teachers’ houses in all learning spaces
•       Inadequate sanitary facilities in all learning spaces
• Inadequate funding especially in the inspectorate sector and support for co-curricular activities in the District.
• High school dropout rates
• Inadequate co-funding for Education programe
•  Lack of libraries and sufficient scholastic materials.
•   Lack of sporting infrastructures
•   Negative attitude towards education by the communities
•   Games teachers lack knowledge and skills to carryout co curricular activities.
•   Lack of mid-day meals especially for learners.

Recommendations for better service delivery in the Education sector/department

• Introduction of incentives/allowances for Teachers in hard to reach schools

• Enforcing the policy of payment of the Ugx 10,400/= in Town Council based Government aided schools to support Teachers.
• Construction of more Teachers houses, classrooms and sanitation facilities
• Communities to be encouraged and guided on construction of Teacher’s houses using local materials
• Lobbying Development partners to support the Education Road map.
• The Ministry of Education and Sports should give special consideration to Ntoroko in respect to SFG
• Develop an Education Ordinance to control/reduce on animals loitering in schools, school drop outs and early marriages/ defilement of girl children; and also for school feeding programme.
• Games Teachers should be trained or given refresher courses in co-curricular courses.

     The Joint Tracking team also visited Two Public Health centers; Karugutu Health Centre IV and Ntoroko Health Centre III, and One Private Health Centre; Stellamaris both in Ntoroko District.

Ntoroko Health Centre

 

Clinical Officer at Ntoroko Health Centre III attending to a patient

The Following key challenges were discovered as hindrances to effective health service delivery;

• Congestion by patients especially at Karugutu Health Centre IV in the OPD and in the Wards
• Inadequate staff Houses. According to some staff interviewed At Karugutu Health Centre for example, they share rooms. At Ntoroko Health centre, only six (6) rooms are habitable for the fifteen (15) Health workers.
• No Vaccine refrigerator at Stellamaris
• Inadequate strong source of electricity to power strong medical machines. In Kanara Town council for example, the only source of power is solar and Generators.
• For all Health centers in Kanara Town council, there is no referral system for proper health problems management. This is a risky condition to patients, No standby ambulance.
• Inadequate supplies of drugs at all Health Units. At Ntoroko Health Centre for example by 20^th/09/2015 all quarterly drugs delivered in August, 2015 will be out of stock, according to the clinical officers interviewed.
• Lack of clean and reliable water. At Ntoroko Health centre, the water tanks installed by the Town council affected the one installed by UNICEF and completely no water flows. This has affected the whole town. There was an engineering error by the Town council.

 

Staff House, accomodating two Health Workers at Ntoroko Health Centre III

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best Staff House at Ntoroko Health Centre III

Recommendations to improve on service delivery at Health Centers.

• There is an urgent need for Budget allocations at National or District levels to address challenges of inadequate staff Houses, Recruitment of key staff to work in theatre at Karugutu Health Centre IV,  and budgeting for hard to reach allowances to staff working in Kanara Town council. It is a hard to reach and leave community.
• Access to clean water is generally a challenge to the health centers visited. Priority needs to be given to rehabilitating or installing reliable water sources for improved health. The water source system engineering at Ntoroko HCIII needs to be repeated urgently.
• Possibly, Kanara Town council could attach its Vehicle to the Health centre to play the ambulance role  or purchase an ambulance specifically for the Town council, otherwise in case of an emergency, there are high chances of losing life given the hard to reach nature of the community and absence of an Ambulance.
• An action is also urgently needed towards increasing on quarterly drug supplies from National medical stores to health centers through the District to Match the current population.NMS seems to be having  different population figures from the actual ones served by the health centers. This has escalated drug stock outs.

 

Bath room at the Ntoroko Health Centre III Staff Quarters

 

Un Functional Water Tanks badly installed at the Health Centre.The Engineering work needs to be repeated.

The Joint Vertical tracking exercise that is too fundamental in updating stakeholders on the key strides in Education and Health sectors using the two Lower local Governments as case studies must increase Leaders’ concerns on improving service delivery in the District basing on their first hand field findings and this will result into a District Feedback meeting to discuss the key field findings and come up with key resolutions aimed at reversing the adverse situations above.