PRINCIPALS ASSOCIATION: NO SCHOOLS HAVE RECEIVED FPE FUNDING

MBABANE – Schools are expected to reopen for the first term on Tuesday, January 28, 2025, but there is a significant question: Are they ready?

With only one working day left, schools have still not received the Free Primary Education (FPE) grant disbursement. Primary schools depend heavily on FPE funding to operate, which is used to run the schools, pay support staff and supplement feeding schemes.

Concerns have been raised about the Ministry of Education and Training’s capacity to address several pressing issues, including delays in FPE fund disbursements, delivery of textbooks and the school feeding programme, as well as the readiness of infrastructure following the extensive damage from recent torrential rains.

These challenges follow a year in which similar delays significantly disrupted teaching and learning. When asked for comment, the Acting Principal Secretary (PS) of the Ministry of Education and Training, Nanikie Mnisi, indicated that not all schools had received the FPE grant.

She explained that delays were due to issues such as late submission of documents by schools and errors in entries; for example, some Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) were incorrectly captured. However, the Eswatini Principals Association (EPA) reported a different situation, stating that no school had yet received the FPE grant.

The EPA Secretary, Mduduzi Masilela, noted in a written response that, according to the report from the Ministry, only schools in the Hhohho and Shiselweni regions were currently set to receive the grant, while those in the Manzini and Shiselweni regions were still addressing queries.

He also mentioned that funding for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) had not been received, remarking that schools rely on these resources to operate effectively. Masilela emphasised that timely access to funds is crucial for procuring teaching and learning materials, covering essential services such as water and electricity and maintaining the overall upkeep of schools.

When this journalist returned to the Ministry of Education and Training PS Mnisi to alerting her that the EPA disputed what she had said, as they claim no school had received FPE, she simply responded by saying,  ‘‘The treasury said they are processing sir.”

Regarding the delivery of textbooks, Mnisi confirmed some progress but noted that certain schools were inaccessible due to the torrential rains. She assured that plans were in place to ensure all schools would receive the textbooks to facilitate a smooth learning process. In response to the situation, EPA’s Masilela acknowledged that while some schools had received textbooks, additional funding was still necessary for their transportation to the institutions.

“We will still need the FPE funds to pay for the transportation of the books,” said Masilela. Moreover, government is expected to provide more than just FPE funds or textbooks. Many children in the kingdom come from households that are unable to afford breakfast. To help these children learn effectively, government supplies food through a feeding scheme.

Some head teachers expressed concern that, in addition to delays in FPE funding and textbooks, food deliveries were also lagging. Regarding the school feeding programmes, Education PS Naniki Mnisi explained that food deliveries are typically made during the second week of the term to mitigate the risk of theft during the holidays.

She stated: “The reason for this delay in delivering food is a strategy to reduce the risk of it being stolen. Food could be stolen from schools if it is delivered during holidays when there is little oversight at most of the learning institutions.”

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