School Visit

I have been ill for the last week with a stomach problem! (Probably something called ameobasis or something like that!) Apparently it’s very common for this time of the year (rainy season) and many people have been diagnosed with this at the hospital. Dr Katrien prescribed antibiotics that are pretty strong and actually made me feel worse – like I was about to throw up all the time. I’ve basically spent the week in bed with poor Jonathan having to look after me and cook all the meals!!

I managed to get out of bed on Thursday and ventured into the office for the morning, this was really to prepare me for the next day when I had to set of by half 6 to reach a TDC by 7.15. I had organised a school exchange visit where I was taking 3 teachers from different schools who are teaching different classes to one school that the Primary Education Advisor had selected as being a good school so they could observe good practice.

The school we arrived at is in the middle of no where and is the last point on the actual road (more like wide footpath if you ask me) before it turns into a little trail that leads right up into the Nyika Plateau. As a result the school is in a lovely, peaceful setting at the bottom of these hills. The school structures have been heavily funded by the EU and as a result the classrooms are in good condition and there are even really nice teachers houses with working electricity! Yes it is possible to get electricity in the middle of the Africa bush, only it comes from solar panels on the roofs of the houses. The headteacher took us to his own house for cakes and tea and he even put the television on for us! What a treat! The fact it was all in Chichewa was irrelevant!

Back to the school itself. Even with all this EU intervention there were still only 6 classrooms for 8 classes so the Standard one class met in one local church and the Standard 2 class met in the other one! Thankfully both are really near each other and right beside the school area.

The lessons that I watched were really good and the teachers were managing the new curriculum fairly well. However, there were only 4 teachers including the HT and one volunteer teacher (basically anyone who fancies the job with absolutely no training and is paid for by the local community). So in these classes the learning was taking place. In the other classes the children were there and copying the work from the board or the textbook which had been prepared earlier that day by the HT so one might assume that there was some learning taking place but on closer inspection of the actual work that they were doing this is not the case. Most of the time the work completed was completely wrong and made up. How do you expect children to do long division with barely any example at all? It takes me many hours re-visiting the teachers guide to try and crack the code! So what can the school do? Not a lot really, without the teachers there to help! They are doing their best under the circumstances but the government has made such a fuss about this new curriculum which is really challenging for the teachers at the best of times so that any other problems like classes without teachers really do get left by the wayside to fend for themselves!

Still all in all I was really impressed with the school and I think that the teachers from the other schools were also impressed and hopefully have learnt something new for their teaching.