Financing the Future of Education

We tend to treat education like a social service — but it’s actually an entire ecosystem.

You have the parent, who’s trying to afford it. The school is trying to deliver it. And the child, whose future depends on it.

And when that system breaks — when a child drops out or falls behind — the impact isn’t just academic. It’s social. It’s psychological. It shapes opportunity.

Denis Musinguzi, CEO of Furaha Financial Joins US

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Today we are asking a simple question. What if education is the infrastructure we're not investing in enough? From over 2,376 cities and 178 countries, we bring you the Good Morning Africa podcast. Good morning Africa. Welcome aboard your pulse on everything business in Africa. I am Rither Dong. For more follow us on Twitter, the K Financial News, and you can find me at Rither Dong. We tend to treat education like a social service, but it's actually an entire ecosystem. If you have the parent who's trying to afford it, the school trying to deliver it, and the child whose future depends on it. And when that system breaks, when a child drops out or falls behind, the impact isn't just academic, it's social, it's psychological, and it shapes opportunity. Dennis Musingzi, CEO of Faraha Financial, joins us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I just maybe just speak to the education space, where we are. There's the parent, of course, who's looking for the finance, right? There's the school that needs the funding in order to provide the quality education. And then last, like I said, is the child. Because a child that misses their education, not only misses, it's not an education that they're missing, but they're missing a lot more than that. Because the impact of that is, you know, their welfare, their relationship with their parents, their relationship with their friends, their social mobility, their social interactions. All of that is impacting. And you look at uh you know children at a school going age, you know, some of those uh external vectors impact them quite significantly, right? From the psychological point, from mental state, mental well-being from standpoint. And I think that that is very much uh understated in any economy where you rely on human capital. And I think for us, we need to understand an educated educational population is the bedrock for any human capture projects that you want to build. Um you know, a lot has been done in terms of the economy uh where we sit. I think we sit at about 60 billion US dollars of GDP that has grown significantly over the last you know decade or so. And a lot of infrastructure projects are going on in this country. But you will need the human capital on top of that, right, um, to take it to the next level. And I think the one thing that we haven't really focused on is how education should be an infrastructure project uh because it is feeding the same sort of pipe for development that a country needs. Yes, you're gonna spend money on infrastructure, we're gonna spend money on projects that are driving the country forward. One aspect I think that is missing from that is education, role of education, because that is your pipeline for the human capital skill set and everything that is needed to progress to the next level. So for me, I think that that would be the main standard. I think adopting education through as an as an infrastructure project, more I mean the government is doing everything it can at its level, and we command that. But I think the private sector has a huge part to play that it hasn't up until this point to drive that agenda. Because you know, the government has limited coffers and they have projects that are prioritized that need to happen, but they also need support. And if the private sector is going to play in that space, it would exponentially grow um the growth of the sector's education. And I mean and I mean that in the sense of you know, the way we're a private company, we've come in and we've built this platform and ecosystem to support uh you know education access to finance for school fees. Um but from a private sector perspective, there are much larger projects that can come in that can look at not just enablement. So think about how do we get um uh IT and AI into the curriculum and support that and enable that? How do we get uh kids because we are moving into uh digital and already in it, but we are going to go deeper in it as a country. How do we get um you know schools enabled with you know IT labs and laptops for kids, accessible, affordable, uh so that they're able to evolve their learning? Um how do we then also capitalize on making sure in areas where people don't have access to education at all, what does digital learning and online uh tools, how can they come in and help? And how does the private sector enable that? Yeah so things outreach, enablement, and empowerment. Those are those are critical things I think we can we've not talked about much, but I think it would be fundamentally uh a fundamental change for this country if that if that was if that um activity started to happen from such players, especially in the private sector. Um I think for me that that would be the real game changer. More than what I think Farah is doing, I think that would be the real game changer for for Uganda. And I think that's not talked about enough.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

And a quick look at the markets. The South African rant was slightly weaker at 16.7 per US dollar as market sentiment turned, more cautious amid increasing tensions in the Mid East. The RAND has uh faced increasing volatility recently, pressured by global risk aversion and oil price swings, adding uncertainty to South Africa's inflation outlook. South Africa entered 2026 with a reaper rate of 6.75% following late 2025 easing, with earlier forecasts suggesting the possibility of further rate cuts as inflation stabilized and economic growth remained modest. With the country heavily reliant on imported fuel, higher oil prices could feed through to transport and production costs, threatening the downward path and inflation projected for 2026. With these risks in mind, the South African Reserve Bank is likely to hold the REPA rate at 6.75% next week. The Reserve Bank Governor Lesaja Ncanyago has made it clear that the MPC would like would like to see inflation at its 3% target, not above or below. And a quick review of the other stories, Rwanda's economy expanded 11.2% here on Yang quarter for 2025, slightly lower than the 11.8% growth recorded in the previous quarter. The services sector contributed the most to GDP growth expanding by 8%, mainly driven by increases in wholesale and retail trade, transport and information and communication. The agriculture sector grew by 8%, supported by higher food crop production and export or crop output. The industrial sector expanded by 16% with increases in mining and quarrying, construction and manufacturing. And on a quarterly basis, the economy bounded strongly by expanding 20%, following an 8.1% contraction the previous quarter for the full year. Ronda's economy grew by grew 9.4%, the highest annual growth in four years. The economy of Ghana advanced by 5.8% yan year in quarter for 2025, following a 5.5% rise in the previous period, largely supported by non-oil activities. Services remained the backbone of the economy, accounting for more than 50% of GDP expansion. Key contributors included information and communication, transport and storage, education, and financial and insurance services. At the same time, agricultural activity showed a stronger performance, advancing 5.3% on higher carb production. The key subsector, cocoa rose by 3%. Meanwhile, the industrial sector rose by only 1.9%, with gains in manufacturing and electricity being outweighed by a significant decline in oil and gas production. Considering the full year of 2025, the GDP grew by 6%, marking the fastest expansion since 2019, and an upward revised 5.08% rise in 2024. Thank you for always waking up with us. Good morning, Africa as a product of the K Financial. If you have suggestions or just want to check out more stories, visit the website as the Kfinancial.com and don't forget to subscribe. You can find us on all social media platforms at the K Financial, and you can find me at Wither Down.