It’s that time of year again, the new school year opens and we are cautiously optimistic about the journey we are about to embark upon.
On one hand we are excited about the new crop of lucky youngsters who are about to spend the next five to seven years honing their lives with the KC experience. On the other hand we are filled with trepidation about the youngsters we are about to prepare for their final rite of passage into adulthood and responsible citizenship.
Have we done a good job, have we given them the best experience possible under the circumstances? The answer varies depending on the person we’ve conversed with. Some parents are satisfied, while others are displeased. Interestingly, the latter are the ones who so effectively give the institution its sometimes-deserved black eye.
The pragmatist is given to saying, you can’t please everybody, and by extension not everyone is going to be happy with your offering. This line of argument will find solace among those who believe that given all the encumbrances that beset the college, it’s a wonder that the teachers and administrators are able to achieve the success they do. A year ago we were all hailing the tremendous passing percentages that the school was experiencing; we were saluting the teachers and administrators for doing a magnificent job. We celebrated unprecedented sports, academic, and extra-curricular successes, while some among us quietly stood by with the benign observation that can you imagine how much more could have been achieved if we had an efficiently running machine.
To many of us it seems like a tremendously frustrating experience to get the KC machinery firing on all cylinders, it’s even a tall order to appear on the same page with all the various factions that keep the KC machinery running. From administrators to teachers, volunteers to old boys to the executive board it seems like everyone had their own agenda and if it coincides with that of KC, consider ourselves lucky and hope for progress to follow.
Year after year we limp along with this obviously dysfunctional process and vow to be ever so better in the coming year. The old boys saw this glaring shortcoming and decided to convene a summit over eight years ago. Their aim was the elimination of duplicity and waste, developing priorities, disseminating information through a shared communication platform, rallying the troops for better fund raising and overall just improving the running of the KC machinery.
Well after many years of this uphill struggle the summit was finally dropped this year due to a lack of interest and a general failure of the school to meet the basic immediate goals that emanated from the summit. Many old boys who saw the summit in action realized its limited worth and had mixed feelings about its preservation. While it was tough to get buy-in from the clergy and executive board on critical issues, it nevertheless provided a point at which the other shareholders and old boy chapters could convene and share a common agenda. With the absence of the summit this year, it’s no surprise that we are back to the confusion and lack of transparency that plagued us in the past.
We are about to embark upon a new year with questions about who is the Headmaster, will we or won’t we have one? The musical chair continues. We pick the most opportune time to throw everything in a tailspin. Our physical plant again is in disrepair, working lavatories on both campus are reduced to two or three, laboratories are reduced to Bunsen burners and few working sinks, the fields are still brown dust bowls, the chapel is partially fixed, classrooms still without windows, classrooms whiteboards still uninstalled and the list goes on.
Again there is enough blame to go around, questions loom over the campus like rain, yet we are expected to soldier on. The entire summer went by and the endless list of repairs was never broached; yet we are expected to undertake major repairs when the children are back in school for the start of the new school year.
More than at any time since the inception of the abandoned summit, all shareholders who are anxious to see the efficient functioning of Kingston College must find ways to collaborate to realize this small miracle. With projects like the Chapel to complete, lets implore the leaders of all KCOBA chapters to confer with these selfless volunteers who are de facto managers and provide the necessary assistance to them to see the projects through to completion. The old boy chapters simply must engage whoever can help including PTA, volunteers and de facto project managers to determine where we can provide the best assistance and lead courageously, because to depend on the executive board and the clergy for such direction is digging the school deeper in a hole from which it will be too difficult to escape.
The established style of passive management has deposited this institution in a ravine so deep it is going to take Herculean efforts to avoid the avalanche of water heading our way. Comparing Kingston College to St George’s College across the street one has to wonder is the Catholic church that much richer? Or the Jesuit Fathers that much more intelligent? The question reverberates through our conscience when we visit and walk through campuses like Wolmers, Calabar and Munroe, who do not have the benefit of the omnipotent Catholic Church.
On the question of intelligence, I am reluctant to concede to the Fathers, a superior cerebral gift. I have seen magnificent ideas emanate from the KC old boys circle just to languish in obscurity where they eventually die for lack of attention. A prime example was an idea offered over a decade ago and it was six years ago when I first heard it. An old boy suggested we irrigated our fields and plant grass, the idea was to elevate them to a premier standard, then offer them for rent to teams from outside the corporate area who wanted to temporarily practice or stage matches in a central venue.
At the time when the idea was first floated, the cost of irrigation was a fraction of what it is today, which is still not prohibitive. While we haven’t given up on this idea, we just have not gotten around to it, meanwhile St Georges has been renting their fields for years making needed income which stretches to make their campus more functional and more attractive. It is one of the training venues for the National football team. The same thing was suggested for the Chapel many moons ago, yet we haven’t been able to capitalize. The fact is both KC campuses are in great locations for inner city events, once we can resolve the parking issue we can generate revenue to help with the light bill, plus we probably would eliminate ninety percent of the water bill if we irrigate.
With the Government making secondary education free to the citizens, institutions like Kingston College must plan for reduced revenues from fees and think of more creative ways of replacing lost fees. It is synonymous with Governments to cry paucity of resources, and ours in a developing country has made this its signature song. Now more than ever the survival of Kingston College will depend on shrewd management, and creative thinking. For those who are Christians, if ever we have to walk by faith, the time is now.
