Minutes:
Minutes of Asako Primary School Trust
Trustees meetingheld on 12 January 2012
A.F. Gross’ Offices, Nairobi
In attendance:
Juma Ali Dido, Chairman of Asako PST
Gure Muhamed, TeacherRepresentative
Komora Samuel, Head Teacher
Ismail Solola, Asako Trustee
Tony Fitzjohn, TAS Trustee
Stephen Kameti, TAS/KWS
Gill Marshall-Andrews, TAS Head Secretary
Sarah Wright, TAS Asako Secretary
JAD convened the meeting with a prayer
SW summarized the discussion at the October site visit, at which the school was again put on notice that TAS would withdraw financial support to the school unless there was evidence of improvement academically (via November’s KCPE) and in terms of stewardship of TAS funded facilities and materials.
Academic Performance/ KCPE Results
JAD then notified the attendees that the KCPE scores had been lower than expected and all but one Asako student were under investigation for having cheated on the Kiswahili portion of the exam, and therefore were given a score of 0 on that section, lowering even further the aggregate scores.
The mean score for the 10 students who sat the 2011 exam was 168.8, compared with a mean score of 192 for the 25 students who sat the exam in 2010.The highest aggregate score of any student was 224.
The parents and teachers are obviously demoralized by this news. If found guilty (the investigation is ongoing), the students will have to sit Standard 8 again and re-take the KCPE next year (2012).
Teacher Housing
9,000ksh has been collected from the teachers living in the staff housing to repair and paint the ceilings. The HT is still not collecting a monthly amount from the teachers to build up a reserve fund for repairs, as discussed over the past two years and requested by TAS at the October site visit.
Conclusion
GMA conveyed a loss of confidence in the management of the school. Despite a large investment in Asako, the academic results are worse than they were before and the school has failed to make good on agreements. TAS will therefore suspend all funding from the end of January until reconsideration this time next year.
SW will draft a letter for GMA’s signature for JAD and SK to take to the DEO (District Education Officer), so that he knows TAS has pulled out so that he can allocate more teachers to Asako.
