A. EXISTING PROBLEMS

St. Konrad Integrated Vocational School was conceived as an answer to fundamental problems that affect rural people in Uganda.

1. The rural people have virtually no income generating sources.
2. Most people work very hard but earn very little.
3. Rural people suffer poor health in terms of nutrition and fight against diseases.
4. Children of rural people cannot afford education in good schools.
5. The aged have no security and suffer neglect, starvation and disease.
6. Many women are left to care for children while husbands are away for work.
7. Children upbringing is often left to mothers without sufficient incomes or resources.
8. Rural people have no strong cooperatives to organize their production and sales.
9. Rural people have a high incidence of diseases especially HIV/AIDS.
10. Many orphans especially victims from AIDS scourge lack support for formal education.
11. There is a high emigration rate to other areas causing tribal tensions.

In short, although rural people work very hard, they have the lowest incomes and their standard of living is wretchedly poor. How could this situation be changed? The key to bring out change is through providing appropriated education, a needs-based education to rural people. This education shouldprovide skills competently in the short period of formation and aim at producing job makers rather than job seekers. This is realisable by integrating vocational and secondary education.

B. THREE KEY PILLARS OF THE SCHOOL

Work

The school endeavours to instill in the young people a spirit of work. Not to work any how but to provide quality work. This means acquiring skills in certain trades so that whatever they will produce will fetch high value. In this way, the products of St. Konrad integrated Vocational School will earn higher incomes and be able to acquire what they need for themselves and for their families.

Unity

The ability to work and to work well is not enough in fighting poverty. Collective effort is deemed to be better than isolated, singular effort. Many societies that have improved their standards of living did so by encouraging people to work together. So, St. Konrad Integrated Vocational College endeavours to instill in the students the spirit of cooperation in work, so that when some students graduate in skills, they will be able to form some groups or associations by which they shall pool their resources to realize higher incomes. It is also forethought that such associations are likely to attract more support than individual efforts as regards soliciting funds for development.It is also a historical fact, that many rural people are often divided according to religious, political or tribal lines. These divisions impede any effort for working together. St. Konrad integrated vocational school encourages all to work together without discrimination

Development

St. Konrad integrated Vocational College is not only interested in imparting skills to young people from rural areas but also to see a transformation of rural life to acceptable high standards of living. The school intends to be an agent of social, economic, and political changes in rural areas. By its instrumentality, rural people should access good drinking water, electricity, good housing, good roads, good jobs as well as living in harmony with each other. There should no more be perennial and perpetual famine in the villages, if people acquire those skills by which they could earn substantial incomes or produce substantially beyond subsistence level.

C. VISION

The School’s vision is the creation of a modernised rural environment in which a skilled rural population with an integral vision of life is able to sustain development with a harmonious and reasonable standard of living.

D. MISSION

The School’s mission is the formation of rural youth into persons that cherish work, unity and Development.

E. OBJECTIVES

1. To provide appropriate education that is both theoretical and practical
2. To facilitate rural youth attain post primary education that is job-oriented.
3. To produce job-makers and not job-seekers.
4. To offer both Vocational and secondary courses at different levels.
5. To promote women emancipation by equipping the girl child with appropriate education.
6. To imbue in students the ability for inventiveness and entrepreneurship
7. To reduce the rate of emigration to neighbouring districts.
8. To reduce tribal tension.
9. To imbue school life and education with Christian values.
10. To reduce incidence of AIDS/HIV.
11. To provide youths orphaned by the HIV/AIDS with skills for their livelihood.
12. To create skills necessary for Uganda’s industrial development.
13. To participate in the Millennium goals in the area of education, health and poverty reduction.
14. To train students in leadership and social responsibility.

F. SCHOOL MOTTOSKILLS ARE FOOD

Rural people do not live but survive. To equip them with appropriate skills will provide them with a means of livelihood.

G. PATRON: ST. KONRAD FROM PARZHAM IN BAYERN, GERMANY

Brother Konrad of Parzham, Germany, is known to have shared his bread with the poor.The School, instead of bread, shares skills with the poor to improve their life condition