Monday, August 20, 2007
"this is my class room"
This past week we had a guest from Canada visit our home for orphan and HIV+ children here in Dar es Salaam. Jesse is an education student at McGill University. A very energetic and open-minded person, she enjoyed visiting the home and playing with Mboni and Dhokus, the two 5 year old girls who are still too young to go to school. When I suggested we visit the primary school across the road, she jumped at the opportunity. We crossed the road, entered through the gate and waded through the children on our Way the Head Masters office. Teachers sat outside of packed classrooms marking beat up exercise books.
Mburahati is a poor unplanned residential area in Dar es Salaam. What we would call the "other side of the tracks." If you are an expatriate your embassy and friends would tell you to definitely not go there as if you were guaranteed to get robbed. However, for a grass-roots organization working with vulnerable children this is our first stop, a place we visit every week. In fact, it is much more friendlier than any tourist area where you might actually get robbed!
We met the Head Master, and after some time speaking in Swahili we switched over to English so Jesse could understand. I asked the Head Master some questions about the school and the children and Jesse listened with curiosity.
I commented on how many children were present and she gave me a break down of the school population...2298 children attend mburahati Primary School. There are 19 class rooms and 37 teachers on staff, but usually the number of teachers present is much lower. The class average is 129 children and the student/teacher ratio is at best 62:1. Often the teacher doesn't actually fit into the class once the children are in and has to lecture from the door way.
The Head Master continued telling us that the teachers had no staff room or supplies and the school had no electricity or water. The children had to bring their own drinking water and water to flush the toilets.
Jesse was silent through the whole discussion. I asked her if she had any questions and she simply said, "I have to let it sink in first." It was at this point that I realized how shocking this must be for a Canadian teacher, accustomed to the quality of a Canadian school, to be presented with such realities. Personally, being in Tanzania for some time and having seen much worse conditions within and outside Dar es Salaam, I was thinking the school was relatively well off in comparison. When I think of a school that is in rough shape I think of Kilosa Primary School, where kids walk several kilometers to attend class in a room where the mud brick walls had collapsed a long time ago.
In an attempt to shed light on the current circumstances I explained to her how crowding of schools has become a severe problem in the last two years due to the fact that as a Heavily Indebted Poor Countrie(HIPC), primary education in Tanzania was made free to all two years ago. As a result, literally over 2 million children showed up to class the next day. Schools are still struggling to meet the demands, and progress is being made, slowly.
I guess this meant to serve as an eye opener to those of us that need to step out of our bubble. I think how lucky I was to have the chance to attend school in Canada. I regret being such a pain in the ass to my teachers. I regret not taking more advantage of the educational opportunities avialable to me at the time.
What a gift it is to have the opportunity to be properly educated..to have a book to study from, a pencil to write with, a pair of shoes to wear to class, a teacher, or better yet, a teacher with a lesson plan and a class room to say, "this is my classroom."
Mburahati is a poor unplanned residential area in Dar es Salaam. What we would call the "other side of the tracks." If you are an expatriate your embassy and friends would tell you to definitely not go there as if you were guaranteed to get robbed. However, for a grass-roots organization working with vulnerable children this is our first stop, a place we visit every week. In fact, it is much more friendlier than any tourist area where you might actually get robbed!
We met the Head Master, and after some time speaking in Swahili we switched over to English so Jesse could understand. I asked the Head Master some questions about the school and the children and Jesse listened with curiosity.
I commented on how many children were present and she gave me a break down of the school population...2298 children attend mburahati Primary School. There are 19 class rooms and 37 teachers on staff, but usually the number of teachers present is much lower. The class average is 129 children and the student/teacher ratio is at best 62:1. Often the teacher doesn't actually fit into the class once the children are in and has to lecture from the door way.
The Head Master continued telling us that the teachers had no staff room or supplies and the school had no electricity or water. The children had to bring their own drinking water and water to flush the toilets.
Jesse was silent through the whole discussion. I asked her if she had any questions and she simply said, "I have to let it sink in first." It was at this point that I realized how shocking this must be for a Canadian teacher, accustomed to the quality of a Canadian school, to be presented with such realities. Personally, being in Tanzania for some time and having seen much worse conditions within and outside Dar es Salaam, I was thinking the school was relatively well off in comparison. When I think of a school that is in rough shape I think of Kilosa Primary School, where kids walk several kilometers to attend class in a room where the mud brick walls had collapsed a long time ago.
In an attempt to shed light on the current circumstances I explained to her how crowding of schools has become a severe problem in the last two years due to the fact that as a Heavily Indebted Poor Countrie(HIPC), primary education in Tanzania was made free to all two years ago. As a result, literally over 2 million children showed up to class the next day. Schools are still struggling to meet the demands, and progress is being made, slowly.
I guess this meant to serve as an eye opener to those of us that need to step out of our bubble. I think how lucky I was to have the chance to attend school in Canada. I regret being such a pain in the ass to my teachers. I regret not taking more advantage of the educational opportunities avialable to me at the time.
What a gift it is to have the opportunity to be properly educated..to have a book to study from, a pencil to write with, a pair of shoes to wear to class, a teacher, or better yet, a teacher with a lesson plan and a class room to say, "this is my classroom."
