Trustees’ Annual Report for the year ended 30th June 2022.
This Annual Report covers the short period from April 2022 with an update to March 2023, given the last Report covered the eighteen months up to April 2022 and included a comprehensive summary of the monitoring visit which took place that month. In summary this period has been primarily one of consolidation. The pilot ECD project continues to perform well on a stand-alone basis and has become sustainable with strong local community and District support. R4SR has been most focussed this year on evaluating the initial M&E project and has begun discussions with HAC in Kigali and Holland about a new medium term partnership.
There has been no change in the charity’s purpose, objectives or scale since 2021. As in previous years, the Trustees therefore believe there is no need for the charity to have a policy on reserves or the induction or training of Trustees. The Trustees believe the charity is not exposed to any major risks and therefore no systems or procedures are required to manage such risks. Specifically no external fundraising activities were undertaken during the year or are anticipated in the medium term.
This Report references back to the 2021 Annual Report Summary, where the following priorities were identified for the next twelve months:
Follow-Up on Monitoring Visit (Findings and Learnings, including M&E)
As highlighted in the previous report, there were three key findings.
Firstly, as a result of the initial success of the three ECD centres and strong community support, attendance was starting to exceed capacity, especially in the low cost remote centres. Responding to community feedback and in order to preserve quality and widen access, R4SR agreed further investment in the two centres in Nyarugenge and Gashora to add to classroom capacity. This was achieved cost effectively by building a permanent classroom structure over the covered play areas at both centres, which were effectively already operating as two open air temporary classrooms. HAC in Kigali ran a competitive tender process with two local contractors and R4SR advanced approx $20k in November 2022 to fund the construction. HAC contributed approx Rwf 2.5m to fit out the classrooms with the necessary equipment. This exercise was completed quickly before the end of 2022, in order to mitigate significant construction cost inflation.
Secondly, the position of the home based ECD support element of the project remains under discussion. The ongoing need for training of local parents and the need for WASH facilities was debated following the visit and R4SR deferred any further funding support until the next monitoring visit-expected to be in July this year.
Thirdly, the first year M&E report funded by R4SR was produced by HAC Kigali in October 2022. This report was a positive, albeit very preliminary, start in assessing the extent to which investment in these ECD centres translates into improved primary school performance at P1 and beyond. Data collection is labour intensive across the target and control groups, which total approx 150 children. It also requires the close cooperation and training of teachers across the three ECD centres and three adjoining primary schools. In summary the initial data suggests the first cohort of children attending the centres performed better than the control group in graduating from PI (52% versus 32% respectively). 50% or lower attendance record data also stood at 3% for the centres versus 11% for the control group. Drop out rates show a similar pattern but the initial sample is very small. It is important to note that as the three centres are new, it will take a number of years before the full benefit of consistent attendance at the centres over, say three years, can be assessed, versus only
one year in 2022. This initial study also highlighted the extent to which both parental socio-economic status may have a very significant impact (absolute performance levels were clearly still low across both groups) and the challenges of transitioning from an ECD centre to primary school (including the use of English language).
These initial findings have started to attract greater interest from the District authorities and a broader group of stakeholders with a focus on ECD in Rwanda. Based on this output, R4SR signed a new partnership agreement with HAC to fund a second year of data collection through until the end of December 2023. During this second year R4SR will review (i) the cost effectiveness of such a longitudinal study, which potentially could be high without other sources of funding support; and (ii) reflect on the best use of such an evaluation (ie fundraising, improving education quality or influencing Rwandan education policy, or any combination of these, for example).
Work With HAC on a New Strategic Plan
This began in the fourth quarter of 2022. HAC tabled a presentation setting out its key milestones for scaling this project in Rwanda and R4SR is now in the early stages of discussing the extent and scope of such a Plan with HAC. A draft Theory of Change has been created. Initial progress is therefore encouraging, although there is no guarantee at this stage that a mutually agreed Plan will be established. June is scheduled to be the next key milestone month. In the meantime, R4SR has provisionally scheduled its next monitoring visit to Rwanda for July.
Finally, this year I have been attending a course at Harvard focussed on social impact and social entrepreneurship. This has included a course entitled “ECD in a Global Context” taught by Professor Dana McCoy, a world leading educational expert in this field. This course has highlighted the extent to which both science and development have come together to prioritise investment in ECD in recent years, which is a very encouraging endorsement of R4SR’s chosen focus. But the course has also highlighted the challenges of assessing the effectiveness of a broad range of ECD interventions, especially when many assessments are qualitative and very few have been conducted in LMICs. This potentially makes the R4SR M&E project more significant than previously envisaged. I am therefore currently exploring the extent to which Harvard’s resources in this field could be useful to R4SR and HAC between now and the end of December, in this specific context and alongside the potential for scaling the initial pilot.
Chris Coles, Chairman April 15th 2023.
Ready4SchoolRwanda 1167472 Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period 01/07/2021 30/06/2022 To from
Section A Receipts and payments
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Restricted funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Endowment funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Total funds to the nearest £ 18,000 - - - - - - - 18,000 - - - 18,000 20,215 115 - - - - - - - 20,330 - - - 20,330 2,330 |
Total funds to the nearest £ 18,000 - - - - - - - 18,000 - - - 18,000 20,215 115 - - - - - - - 20,330 - - - 20,330 2,330 |
Last year to the nearest £ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | - | |||||
| Interest | - | 28 | ||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) |
- | 28 | ||||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). |
||||||
| - | ||||||
| - | - | |||||
| Sub total | - | - | ||||
| Total receipts A3 Payments |
||||||
| 28 | ||||||
| HAC(Rwanda NGO) | - | 9,654 | ||||
| Bank Charges | - | 43 | ||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| **Sub total ** | - | 9,697 | ||||
| A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) |
||||||
| - | ||||||
| - | ||||||
| **Sub total ** | - | - | ||||
| Total payments Net of receipts/(payments) A5 Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash funds this year end |
||||||
| 9,697 | ||||||
| - | - | - | 2,330 |
- 9,669 | ||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||
| - | - | - | 3,034 | |||
| - | - | - | 704 | 3,034 |
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
19/04/2023
1
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Categories Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees B1 Cash funds B2 Other monetary assets B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use B5 Liabilities B3 Investment assets |
Signature Details Details Barclays £ account Barclays $ account Details Details Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) Details |
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ to nearest £ 704 - - - - - 704 - Agreement Error OK Unrestricted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ to nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs Cost (optional) - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs Cost (optional) - - - - - - - - - Fund to which liability relates Amount due (optional) - - - - - Print Name |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| OK | |||
| Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| When due (optional) |
|||
| Date of approval |
|||
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
19/04/2023
2