"These Days Is Hard"
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 14/May/2010 15:40, 34 days ago
(Written 06/05/2010 21:30, My House, Janjanbureh)The title of this post is easily the single phrase that I’ve heard most over the last few days. The big CCM meeting, with all the Ministry bigwigs in attendance and, in many cases, staying in the office compound, has been in full swing and, for once, no-one could claim that the RED staff haven’t been working hard. Education Officers, Secretaries and so on have become temporary canteen workers, waitresses and general gophers for the week, running around trying to make sure the high ups are all kept happy.I think there’s an unspoken but significant competition between the different regions as to who can hold the best CCM, with the best food and general standard of hosting. I certainly got the distinct impression that the food was the thing that was most concerning the RED: would there be enough, would it be upto scratch? The answer to both questions turned out to be yes, but the concern about that seemed disproportionately high compared to that shown over the state of the region’s schools, which is what the CCM is in large part intended to monitor.Those school monitoring visits happened yesterday, and the delegates reported back today on what they found, with the headteachers of the inspected schools summoned to hear the verdict. I found the reports really interesting, as I don’t get to go out into schools very much and see what actually happens on the ground. The reports were generally positive, highlighting good things being done in the schools and hard work put in by heads and teachers. I hate to sound like the incorrigible cynic that I am, but I couldn’t help wondering whether the delegates were perhaps giving some of the schools more credit than they deserve. The problem with these type of flying visits is that while it’s easy to check the administrative details (cashbooks, attendance registers, etc), it’s hard to adequately assess the most important element of a school: the quality of the teaching and learning which is taking place. For that matter, there are some schools where the monitors claimed to have seen admin documents, including lesson plans dating back months, which we know weren’t in place only a few weeks back.That caution aside, some of the stories which came back from the schools were truly inspiring. There is one village which has no permanent school structure, because the Ministry couldn’t provide funds for them to build one (it is now in the first phase of being built). But the community wanted the school so badly that they built one themselves. And when that was destroyed in the rains, they rebuilt it. The community has no money to pay school fees, so the head agreed that instead of money they could pay in groundnuts, which the school could sell to get some income. They have no classrooms, no furniture, no kitchen, no toilets, no books, nothing, and yet they’ve still managed to create a school environment in which kids can and dolearn. This particular head received a standing ovation from the gathering, and if she’s done even half of what the report said she has, she really deserved it. Another positive report came from a newly-established secondary school, where a team of young, enthusiastic and above all Gambian teachers (it’s unusual to find a secondary school without at least a few foreign teachers as there just aren’t enough adequately qualified Gambians) had managed to give the school a real flying start, engaging the community and giving the students enthusiasm for learning.So, I guess the lesson from this is that things aren’t all bad, and in the interests of staying positive it’s important to remember that. No matter how much you might hear about schools with terrible organisation, a disinterested community and teachers who don’t bother to actually teach, there are a few shining examples which show that it can be done. And perhaps the best thing that came out of the reports was that it seems to be the younger teachers and heads who are generally doing particularly well, which is a complement to the current training programs (whose design and implementation has been supported by VSO, I should point out!) and does bode well for the future.