Jobs, teachers, jollies.
on Kate in Guyana (Guyana), 21/May/2010 15:32, 34 days ago
I have just finished applying for a job at the College where I used to work in the UK - so it feels like I am getting closer to finishing here. The job is for an ICT teacher, which would be a bit of a change, but it would be a challenge, although a different one from the challenges here. I have to get a police check before I go. Another volunteer says that she got a police check from a different country that said "she is not a thief, and as far as we know has not murdered anyone". Hopefully the police checks here will be a bit closer to what is expected in the UK.At work this week I've been chasing up the last of the assignments. I enjoy the bit where I go out into schools and meet with teachers. It's usually a few teachers at a time, and I now know them well enough that they will talk with me freely. There is a big range of ability among the teachers here. They get allocated to schools by the education department, who tend to send the more able teachers to the better schools - the special schools are the bottom of the pile. Also teachers are so poorly paid that they would not consider doing any work outside teaching hours. So reading a booklet may be beyond what they can do while they are supervising children with disabilities, as you can imagine.A couple of jollies over the weekend - a gathering at a rooftop bar (sea views) to welcome the new lot of volunteers tonight - and a dance performance on Saturday. We find dance is fairly safe as you get music as well as a spectacle, but you don't have to try to understand jokes in the local creolese dialect.