First part of first week in Tumu
on Working in Tumu (Ghana), 28/Feb/2011 21:52, 34 days ago
Busy, busy day today as we went off on our first school visits. headed east with Kenneth, Headteacher Adviser, to two schools on the border with the Upper East, Banu and Basiasan. It is the week of the mock JHS Form 3 mock exams and GES staff monitor the conduct of the exams and visit all of the schools taking the mocks in turn. We arrived at Banu after a bone shaking drive down the dust track from Tumu and met the headteacher who took us to the classroom where Form 3 were taking the English language paper - all was well, desks in correct order, papers with no blank pages and the pupils had been working since 9.00am on the two English appers, first multiple choice second essay and comprehension. All had chosen the essay on why there is indiscipline in Junior High Schools, which the headteacher admitted they had written as a past question in the past. went round the rest of the school, checking registers, meeting pupils and talking to staff, 3 out of 12 not in school meaning that three classes were in their rooms without teachers, with some supervision from older pupils and were eagerly going through their work. Kindergarten was one without a teacher and there were about 35 4 year olds in a large room with an older boy who was sound asleep, haed on desk! The children were not mis-behaving and were probably welcoming the time in school in a secure environment. RThe food programme which supplies free food in some schools was not running because they had reached their quota of food as the figures were based on last year's roll which was considerably less than this years! We saw all classes and wrote a brief evaluative comment in the log book before moving on to the second school. Six classrooms but unfortunately one block had been badly damaged in a storm two years ago and so there were three classes outside under awnings. the new block was being built but was not finished. textbooks in evidence although Form 2 reported that they had seen a maths textbook even though the GES HT Adviser knew they had been sent. Captitation is not high 75pence per pupil per term. We looked in on the mock exams and the other classes, number staff not here as they were on an employment programme paid for by the District Assembly but they didn't apppear to have been paid for some months so had gone to Tumu on friday and weren't back on Monday. Had some rice from the school feeding programme for lunch and then witnessed the bush fire people deliver a long homily on the dangers of bush fires to the entire school and some community members include the chief. Got back to the office about 4.00pm exhausted but having visited our first Gahan schools. More to follow tomorrow with some photos