Assessment of education interventions by world vision and compassion international on orphans and vulnerable children of Rakai District, Uganda
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The worsening situation of Orphans and other Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Uganda raised concern from International NGOs such as Compassion International (CI) and World Vision (WV) to offer education services among others. This study sought to establish the nature of the education needs of vulnerable children, the criteria for selecting education beneficiaries by World vision and Compassion International, the impact of education efforts on addressing the needs of the OVC as well as the challenges faced by International NGOs in addressing the education needs of the OVC. A cross-sectional research design was adopted and primary data collected using questionnaires from 62 beneficiaries of World vision and Compassion International. In addition, one Compassion International and one World Vision staff, two Church leaders, five opinion leaders and one Rakai District Education Officer were consulted. Random and purposive sampling were used to select respondents. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis while quantitative data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) to generate descriptive statistics. Research findings revealed that the major education needs of OVC were school fees, exercise books and pens, school uniform, personal requirements like shoes, toilet paper, brooms, school bags, vaseline as well as lunch. Although each NGO had standards that had to be followed in selection of OVC to benefit from their education support, both had a similarity of giving priority to orphans and vulnerable children. As far as their impact was concerned, international NGOs had made a positive impact in education of the OVC in Kakuuto county. This is in spite of several challenges like inability to cater for all the requirements of secondary school students, failure to cater for boarding costs for OVC whose homes are beyond 3km from the schools, delay in payment of school dues, disappointment expressed by donors about children who failed to be promoted to the next classes and; political interference among others. Therefore, the study recommended that both NGOs should widen the scope of the OVC selection standards by increasing their geographical coverage to allow many children to benefit from their assistance, quick payment of school fees by negotiating for annual school fees payments rather than the current termly payments, seeking funds for boarding costs and remedial classes by writing more fundable proposals, finding alternative sources of funding like income generating activities and fundraising drives among others.