This week I have continued my third round of review visits – 12 schools in 4 days, with another 17 to do next week.  I am looking for evidence that VSO’s work in Bukoba District has led to a change in teaching practice towards a more participatory approach and I am looking for “champion” teachers who will be trained as mentors and will then train teachers in their own schools and in schools in their own and adjacent wards.  I am also presenting certificated signed by the District Education Officer to schools who improved their Standard VII exam results from 2009 to 2010.

This is the moment of truth as, in part, it is my effectiveness as the BRDC’s Mathematics Advisor that is being tested.

Monday was discouraging!  Steve suggested I rate my days with a score out of 10.  Monday was only a ‘3’.  I was disappointed with the lessons I observed – I have found previously that Mondays can be problematic.  The only highlight was being able to present a certificate of improvement that I hope will be an encouragement to the teachers at that school.

Tuesday was a “day off”.  We have been in contact with a married couple from the US who, as newly weds, had been teachers in a Bukoba District secondary school nearly 50 years ago.  They contacted us as they are also keen bird watchers and were interested in seeing some of Steve’s Bukoba Specials.  We met the Dicksons on Monday night for dinner and on Tuesday went to Nyakato Secondary to be part of the celebration planned for them as they revisited the school for only the second time since they’d left in 1965.  It was a wonderful occasion for us to be part of, with a school assembly on the grass under the trees and singing, traditional Haya music and dancing, poems specially written by the boys and speeches (including an impromptu one from me – I should have known I would be called on & prepared something suitable!)   


We were privileged to sign the Visitors’ Book that had been in constant use since the school’s opening in 1922 and had many famous signatures including that of Julius Nyerere, the founding President of the Republic of Tanzania. 

Wednesday I was back on the road visiting schools while Steve was off bird watching with the Dicksons.  For me Wednesday was a ‘9’! The teachers were lively; they had prepared interesting lessons and were using teaching aids of their own design.  I showed the teachers at one school a way of teaching adding and subtracting integers (+ve & -ve numbers) using bottle caps.  At the next school, one of the teachers who was travelling with us for the day demonstrated the method to the teachers there.  I had found some mentors!

Thursday was a ‘6’. The visits highlighted some of the big problems the school system faces here.  Teacher shortages mean some schools are understaffed, and there is no equity in the staffing.  One school had 1 teacher per 50 students, another school, 1/2 hour closer to town and much easier to get to, had 1 teacher per 20 students.  Teachers in both schools are paid the same rate even though the teachers in the first are working much harder - more books to mark and less preparation time.  The children at that school are among the poorest I have seen - many without shoes and the uniform in tatters. 

One tiny, little thing in the Standard 2 class was trying to write with a pencil about 2 cm long.  I gave her mine.  She will be the only child in Kagera with a pencil stamped Proudly Made in Australia!  She seemed such a bright little thing but her future probably holds working on the family shamba (farmlet) from the time she leaves primary school, marrying young and being forever financially dependent on the males in her life.  Girls from this part of the district rarely pass the Standard 7 and very few go to high school.  [A teenage girl in many parts of Africa has a higher probability of dying in childbirth than of finishing high school.]  Unless they do well enough to get into a secondary boarding school, the children here are limited to the local secondary, at least an hour’s walk away from their village.  The boys have more opportunity to find paid employment than the girls.  Boys start truanting frequently from about Standard 5 and though required by law to be at school until they have done the Standard 7 exam it is impractical to enforce this, as families need the money the boys can earn.

Friday was a happy day – I think an ‘8’.  I saw some great classes and was able to present another certificate.  I also caused chaos as many of the children rarely see a Mzungo and were keen to study a live specimen up close.

More school visits in the coming week and I hope to be able to report more days in the ‘8’ and ‘9’ category.

Book Update – I have approved the final proofs and hope for delivery on February 22^nd.  The publisher’s graphic designer has ‘fixed’ the cover and it will now look like this!