So you think you have it bad...
on Jude Timothy (Ghana), 26/Apr/2010 13:00, 34 days ago
Sorry that it’s been a while but I’ve on my travels around Ghana. In recent weeks I’ve up in the Northern Regions where the mercury is often within whispering distance of 40 degrees. Fortunately it’s not the humid heat of the south but a dry heat which means the sweat evaporates straight from your poresand you don’t have the same sticky, grimy feeling you do in the more humid southerly clime. Anyway this entry is about the schools in the North and how much they differ from those down south.If you arrive early enough, around 6am should do it, you will find the whole school employed in cleaning. There are no cleaners so the children bring their own brushes and brooms from home and start their day by sweeping, collecting litter and leaves or washing. Everything is collected and burnt on various fires made out on the school grounds. Can you imagine that at home? All paths and gardens are demarcated by hundreds of white-washed rocks and stones which must all be removed so they can be cleaned around before being replaced. All this supervised by the older children and overlooked by the head or a single teacher. Once the school is cleaned to the heads satisfaction the pupils line up around some focal point, usually but not always the national flag, for assembly. A song is sung and a pledge made and then the whole school marches to their classes to the accompaniment of a drum.The dimensions of an average class size are around 8 metres by 5. I have seen plenty smaller and also some much bigger. Sometimes to accommodate the burgeoning pupil numbers‘other’ rooms are commandeered as classrooms. In one school I saw the head teachers office was being used to teach around 60 children in a room you’d be happy to call a bedroom. Only the children at the back of the ‘classroom’ had desks, in front of them the children sat on benches which stretched out of the door.As I’ve described elsewhere the rooms have no electricity, shuttered windows (no glass) bare walls and floors, corrugated iron roofs and no furniture save for what they are seated on. When they actually have desks children sit in rows facing the chalkboard and although they are designed and built to seat 2 generally accommodate 3 and on occasion 4. Fortunately the desks themselves seem to date from the Victorian period (I’m sure I noticed some Latin graffiti or homework scratched into the tops) and as such will probably out-live the school let alone the class.Class sizes vary, however, I didn’t see any with fewer than 40. More often than not the number was nearer 60... in most cases literally being limited by the size of the room. The largest class I’d personally seen was a year one class with 86 tiny mites seated on the floor, both inside and outside the room, although I have heardstories from other volunteers of class sizes of up to 120 children...I mentioned before children passing razor blades around to sharpen pencils but I’ve also seen pupils’ using just the refill's of biros to write with. Mind you this isn’t any great concern as so few of the children have anything to actually write on. Everyone is supposed to bring their own exercise books to school. They actually need six of these in total at a cost of around 15p each. If a family cannot afford even that small amount the children come with nothing and are expected to ‘absorb’ the knowledge. However in reality many of the children share their paper and books so at the very least the very basics of literacy and numeracy are achieved. It’s easy tosee where a problem may arise if a family has a number of children. And indeed there is a problem getting children to school in the first place. I heard an interesting story about the children from one out-lying village who were not attending lessons. When the parents were quizzed as to why this was, to everyone’s surprise the reason given had nothing to do with the proximity of the school as all believed, but rather the distance to the nearest drinking water. They explained that the nearest water hole was 1 ½ hours ‘drive’ away by car. The village, not having a car, (or a road for thatmatter) needed someone to walk the to the bore hole and carry the water back for them. The parents being too busy with other chores meant it was left to the children to fulfil this task. The choice was simple school or water... not much of a choice at all...The classroom is generally a mix of ages and hence sizes. Unlike in the south, not everyone has a uniform but they do their best with the colours. Every child has very short cropped hair and some, including the girls, will be shaved. This renders both boys and girls indistinguishable but for their clothing. The class in which a child finds themselves depends mainly on how long they have been in schooling as well as their ability. Therefore it is not unusual to find teenagers in primary classrooms. In some instances, whether to keep these older boys (and invariably they are boys) in order or because it frees the teacher from the onerous task of watching out for disruptive elements, these‘children’ are provided with sticks and given the responsibility of maintaining their classmates attention and discipline. Although not ideal it was carried out with surprising restraint.This is just my experience of school life in the more rural parts of Ghana and I pass no comment other than whether as a teacher or pupil‘there, but for the grace of god... ...’