Schools in Namibia (5th Oct 2009)
on Susan Somers (Namibia), 09/Oct/2009 10:33, 34 days ago
I spent two mornings last week visiting some local primary schools, which was a very useful exercise. It gave me a much better idea of the realities/practicalities instead of just the theory, and a better feel for the problems/issues faced by lower primary teachers. Although I only visited 4 classes in 2 school in a certain area, I’m told they would be fairly typical as an example of an average school (in the middle of the spectrum that has a tiny rural village school ‘up north’ on one end and a private well funded Windhoek school on the other)Children start school when they are about 7 years old (grade 1) but unfortunately these lower primary classes are probably the most crowed and have the poorest trained teachers (if a teacher shows ability they are‘promoted’ up the school!) Very few children have the chance to attend pre-school or any kind of formal education before they are 7 (although the Ministry for Education has recently realised the value of early education and are trying to improve this – which is partly the reason the likes of me are here!)School stars between 7am and 8am (depending on the area) and finishes about midday. Teachers are expected to stay much later, in fact many live in the school grounds. Most children can, and do, attend school as it is more or less affordable and there are schools available (there is even accommodation/boarding schools for those who live to far away from a school to travel daily) However the drop-out rate is high and the standard of real literacy is poor.The problem with schools/education here is more the quality of education rather than access. This is probably due to a lack of training, poor support/curriculum/policies, teacher attitude/apathy/ability and management problems (most likely a combination of all of these plus a few I don’t know about yet!).Even though no one at home would consider me any kind of an expert in lower primary, during my visits, I could easily spot some very basic inadequacies in the teaching– mostly in their fundamental approach, technique, classroom management.Things like, always getting the whole class to chorus the answers and not checking who understands and who doesn’t. There was lots of asking them to count/recite/repeat but very little asking them think/explain/answer individually. A lot of time was wasted in copying things down from the board (in a 40 minute maths lesson they got through 4 written problems, 2 as a class, 2 on their own and where most of the class were not able to complete the task) A lot of effort goes into teaching handwriting (which was admittedly very neat) but not into the content/understanding of what they are copying/writing. There seemed to be little or no organisation, aims or focus to the lessons and there didn’t seem to be any real understanding of the children’s capabilities or level. There were very poor strategies for informal assessment and for identifying/dealing those not getting it. In an English grammar lesson the teacher walked around for 20 min, then corrected the work, in almost all cases it was completely wrong but then instead of allowing the children to do corrections or re-explaining (the task was way too hard anyway) they just sat there for a further 10 minutes while everyone else finished off.That might sound pretty negative and there was some good teaching going on. One of the 4 teachers I saw asked individual questions, one tried to have a learning support group and three genuinely tried to help those having difficulties. They were all lacking in confidence but most of them seem to genuinely want help and ways to improve.Another serious problem is language. There are 13 national Languages and English is the official language (although almost no one speaks it as their first language) In schools, the ideal situation would allow children to complete the first 3 years of their educational development in their mother tongue, while learning English as a second language and then, by the end of grade 4 they are all supposed to be proficient enough in English to continue with it as the medium instruction for the rest of their education. It’s kind of complicated but it would be like if we –in Ireland – started school in English and then tried to get everyone up to standard to continue their education as Gaeilge from 2nd class on. The big problem, of course, is the teacher’s standard and ability in these languages (before we even get to their ability to teach!) Also many children cannot access education in their mother tongue so are being educated in another African language, or worse English! (Imagine a Gaelscoil in a DEIS band 1 area with classes of 40+ and poorly trained teachers who don’t really speak much Irish!)There are also the physical factors; a class size of 40 to 45 is the norm with no learning support teachers and pretty basic resources. The children were obviously not well off– only some had school bags, other had plastic bags. Pencils, rubbers and toppers were in short supply, and guarded jealously! They did have some class sets of text books (although not to write in) and they all had a set of copies (carefully covered in newspaper/brown paper and kept in a neat stack on the edge of their desks) Extra resources, like jigsaws, crayons, toys and library books were not in evidence. There were some wall poster but almost none of the children’s art was displayed, leaving the classroom looking quite drab as well as crowded.So where can I help? I’m not really in a position to do anything about the language or resource issue but hopefully I’ll be able to do something to help with training teachers, even if it’s only something small (I’m planning a workshop to develop teaching literacy skills for local teachers). Working with NIED I might be able influence things nationally too (aggh the pressure!!) although there isn’t much I can achieve in a year, since national policies and workshops/training take a long time to develop and implement (especially here!) Hopefully I can motivate my colleagues or help them be more efficient and effective - even to get them to move a bit faster on things and be more practical in their support. I can also help promote the importance of Lower Primary Education (its very under valued and staffed, even here at NIED) How am I going to that? Well I’m still working on that, but at least I’ve a better idea of the problems!