Hillview Park Primary School

Hillview Park Primary School Production Unit Report

Background

Hillview Park Primary school is located off Joe Chibangu Road , Chalala area, South East of Lusaka district. The school runs from pre to grade nine with a catchment of 2000 plus pupils and a workforce of 70 staff members, auxiliary staff inclusive. The school solely depends on government grants and school fees to sustain itself financially.

  1. Why Production Unit? The school recognizes the rising cost of education provision in Zambia hence embarked on a chicken rearing project to generate income. Below are some of the reasons that answer the question: Why production unit?
    1. The school anticipates to be financially self-sufficient hence recognizes production unit as the only strategy that can lead to this actualization. Having adequate income is paramount to the daily operation of a school. This factor compelled us to venture into the village chicken rearing project as it will greatly mitigate the rising cost of education provision and improve the financial profile of the school. The project commenced with 500 chicks.
    2. In accordance with vocational career pathways enshrined in the curriculum, the school is alive to the fact that projects under production unit enables pupils acquire life skills that may aid them earn a living in future through acquisition of relevant skills, knowledge, values and competencies. We vividly believe that production unit equips pupils with various skills that are beneficial especially to those who may not excel academically. It promotes self-reliance and enhances nurturing of the much needed talent and energy of young people in schools in order to develop the required cognitive skills and values.
    3. Production unit promotes food security within the confines of the community where the project is being implemented (where most of our pupils live) thereby improving the nutritional status of local communities and beyond.
  2. What do you hope to achieve?

    The following are factors we hope to achieve after successful implementation of the project:

    1. Acquisition of life-long skills and competencies through practice and active involvement of pupils as enshrined in the curriculum. At the close of the project, we anticipate that our pupils will be motivated to pursue entrepreneurship related careers and apply the acquired lifelong skills in their daily livelihoods as a strategy to increase human resources base for national food security.
    2. More pupils will access quality education due to smooth operation of the school necessitated by the availability of income generated through production unit. The income will be used to procure all required learning materials and provide an enabling environment conducive for learning. The project will enable us eliminate the over dependence syndrome on government grants to provide quality education. It will also result in the reduction of financial burdens that the school has been facing the past years.
  3. What has it so far achieved?
    1. An observation has been made that pupils are being equipped with right competencies, skills, knowledge and values. Pupils are assigned to work in the poultry with minimum supervision from their teachers, an indication that right competencies have being imparted.
      2. Pautry
    2. Through sales made from the project, the school has raised a substantial income that has made it easy to operate with less financial challenges.
  4. What is your next plan of action?

    5. Below are some projects that we intend to undertake as our next Plan of Action

    1. Continuation of village chicken rearing
    2. Strawberry production
    3. Fish farming
    4. Gardening
    5. Mushroom production

    Strawberry and Fish farming

    Hillview park primary school is eager to venture into more than one production unit project as it has now recognized how imperative and beneficial such projects are to the school. The school planned to venture into Gardening, Strawberry and Fish farming. Unfortunately, this has not been done due to the terrene of the geographical location of the school.The land is rocky hence impeding the school to venture into the said projects. Nonetheless, the school has researched on alternative means of growing strawberries in sacks and will soon embark on this project once funds are available. Below is an Action Plan for the continuation of village chicken rearing.

    Action Plan For Village Chicken Rearing, August – December,2020.

    Project Description

    Rearing village chickens to the point of lay and sell them to the target market.(1500 chicks)

    Project Objective/Project purpose
    1. To generate income that will help the smooth operation of the school in order to enhance service delivery and mitigate the rising cost of education provision.
    2. )Embed right skills, knowledge, values and competencies in pupils that will motivate them to pursue entrepreneurship related careers in future.
    Project Timeframe (deadlines and milestones)
      August,2020. Purchasing of chicks-Feeding Vaccinations September, 2020. Feeding Debecking vaccinations October, 2020 Feeding Vaccinations November, 2020 Feeding December, 2020 Feeding Selling of birds
    Human Resource for project implementation
    1. Pupils
    2. Teachers
    3. Auxiliary staff
    4. School Administrators
    5. PTA Executive
    6. interested stakeholders from the PTA
    Resources needed to achieve project goal
    1. Purchasing of birds K13,500
    2. Expansion of current structure and poultry equipment (ie feeders,Drinkers, saw dust, Wire for fencing etc K17000
    3. Feeding K23,500
    4. Vaccines K1,200
    5. Transport when purchasing Feed K1800 K3000 miscellaneous
    6. Total Budget: K60000

      Source of Capital

    1. Current sales of chickens
    2. Project fees
    3. Well Wishers.
    Measures to Evaluate Project Progress
    1. Strictly monitor daily documentation of the bird’s morbidity and mortality rates.
    2. Strictly monitor daily documentation of sales made from birds and ensure the income generated is deposited into the school Production unit account for prudent accountability.
    Target Market
    1. The Community Around
    2. The Staff
    3. Lusaka and beyond.
    4. Expected mount after sales: K126,000

    How Do You Manage To Do That ?

    The following table illustrates how the system has been organised to enable the school implement and manage the project as per project goal/purpose.

    Organisation of the System

    Target

    Structure

    Human Resource

    Organisation

    Establish an income generating venture which should be able to sustain itself and beef up generation of funds for the running costs of the school.

     

    The current structure requires expansion, the space is limited.

    i)Pupils

    ii)Teachers

    iii)Auxiliary staff

    iv)School Administrators

    v)PTA stakeholders

    A duty rota has been drawn to accord all involved stakeholders an opportunity to be equipped with relevant competencies in village chicken rearing.
    What do you think will sustatin the momemntum?

    The project momentum will be sustained if: All involved stakeholders see the goal of the project being achieved.There is transparency in the implementation and management of the project and prudent accountability and usage of project resources.All involved stakeholders and the target group (pupils) have been trained on how to effectively manage the project at all its stagesto broaden their knowledge base on village chicken rearing.

    How Much Money Have You Raised From The Project So Far?

    From the sales of the birds, the project has so far raised K28,000.

    Why this Project?

    To help the school generate income for daily operations of the school and mitigate the cost of education provisions as income will be readily available.This project will enable pupils acquire life skills that will aid them earn a living and pursue entrepreneurship related careers in future. They will be equipped with various skills that are beneficial especially to those that may not excel academically. This project has accorded the school an opportunity to nurture the much needed talent and energy of young people in schools that helps to develop the required cognitive skills and values.It is anticipated that this project will promote food security within the confines of the community where it is been implemented thereby improving the nutritional status of local communities and beyond.

    Challenges
    1. We did not have adequate knowledge and expertise on how to rear village chickens at the time the project was starting.
    2. As the chickens grew, we established that the space in the brooding room was limited to accommodate 500 birds. This led to a high mortality rate.
    3. The chickens contracted some  diseases due to the cold weather and other factors
    Way Forward

    In our quest to deter history from reoccurring,The school sent 10 teachers,5 administrators ,5 production unit teachers and 2 auxiliary staff for training on how to implement and manage a project on village chicken rearing.There is need for expansion of the brooding room.The school will ensure chickens are vaccinated at the right time.

    Levels of Production Unit

    All in all, the above has been based on the following six levels of production:

    Teaching and Learning

    All project implementers have been taught relevant life survival skills which can enable them survive without solely being dependant on formal jobs. Appropriate literature has been distributed as a measure to broaden their knowledge base.

    Entrepreneurship

    The school has generated some income which has made it easy to operate with less financial challenges this term. Procurement of learning materials and other materials that support learning has been done successfully this term.

    Research

    The school has engaged itself in a number of research to broaden the knowledge base of its workforce and pupils before and during implementation of the project to prevent incurring a loss. For example, after establishing that the strawberry production project could not be undertaken due to the rocky land, research was done to find alternative means of growing strawberries.

    Job Creation

    As the number of projects being undertaken increases, their will be need to recruit more personnel to help implement and manage the projects as planned.

    Value Addition

    Apart from the village chicken rearing project, the school will soon embark on a strawberry production project. Raw strawberries produced will processed into jam thereby adding value to our produce.

    Skill Acquisition

    As can be seen in the video attached, pupils and teachers have acquired hands on skills, knowledge and values on how to implement and manage such a project. It is anticipated that this will interest our pupils to venture into entrepreneurship related career.

    LUNGU . A (Ms)

    Head Teacher