Why some schools fail

Mar 11th

Off on a moto again, this time to Bilingaga primary school, the next one across from Gatenzi which I did about a fortnight ago. From Bilingaga you can see Gatenzi and its coffee trees perched high on a hilltop.

Bilingaga is a problem school; its results are some of the lowest in the District. After half an hour with the head, I begin to learn why. Poor buildings, poor teaching (by some, at least), poor families. 32% of his children are too poor to afford shoes. 20% can’t afford uniform. (Also, this part of Muhanga was badly hit by the floods in February, which made a poor area even more desperate). A lot can’t afford to pay for exercise books or biros or any of the other things they need for school. Yet the head runs sports teams and a dance club as well as the obligatory environment and anti-AIDS clubs (and now, by Claude’s dictat, a “club anti-génocidaire” to counter any attempt at reintroducing ethnic hatreds).

But when I observe lessons there are problems evident. The English teacher is making a lot of mistakes in his pronunciation, and some of the sentences he’s using as examples don’t make sense in English. And the standard of writing of the children in year 5 is appalling – spidery writing (in whatever language they’re using). Last year his pass rate was less than 6% against a district average of 24%. He’s set himself a target of 22% this year. All very laudable but I can’t see how he’s going to get there short of divine intervention. What’s happening further down the school that these children are so poor at this stage of things?

When I go into the youngest classes I find they’re packed so tightly into the small classroom they can barely move. He’s got 138 in the first year and 120 in year 2. Both are taught as “double vacation” (i.e. each individual child comes either in the morning or the afternoon and therefore only gets half a day’s schooling), but the poor 1ère teacher still has two groups of 69 children to teach, and marking and report writing for 138. It’s no better in year 2, with two groups of 60. The teacher there is Abel’s wife; she’s lovely, but when we look in the door she’s so jammed in with the kids that she can’t reach me to shake hands.

I want to take photos of these classes; you’ve got to see them to really understand what this pressure of numbers means. Unfortunately by the time I’ve finished elsewhere (giving an impromptu English lesson to year 5 to correct some of their appalling pronunciation), lunchtime has begun and the school is emptying.

Bilingaga’s parents are lethargic and apathetic. In Rwanda parents are very important – they can get head teachers removed – but Abel has problems getting them to come to the formal meetings where they can exercise their power.

Abel, the head, is a genuinely nice guy. He’s got a good sense of management and his documentation is some of the best I’ve seen. He’s doing all the right things. He must be getting let down by the quality of teaching.

So I praise wherever I can, and promise to make sure his teachers get on Cathie’s training courses. Then I leave, walking all the way back to Gitarama. It’s about ten miles, but the weather looks OK and I’ve seen lots of things I want to photograph on the way back. Abel walks with me; his house is a mile or so up the road, and we’re pursued by half the school, who gradually dwindle as they branch off along footpaths through the banana groves and maize fields to their little huts. I’m the cause of endless amusement to people along the road – why is there a muzungu here? And why is he walking? But I speak to everyone and get kindness back. A group of young mums get really saucy; I can’t understand what they’re saying but there’s no mistaking the body language…

I talk to Abel about family sizes. He says that instead of having six to ten children, which has been Rwanda’s problem for a long time, there’s a lot of media pressure now for families to stop at three. Quite how this is going to be done is a mystery. First you’ve got to get contraception (and the knowledge of how to use it) out to these rural areas where the vast majority of parents have never been to school and can’t read or write. Then you’ve got to get round the various churches; almost all of them are seriously fundamental, and take “go forth and multiply” at face value. Even at three children, it means the population increases by around 50% in one generation. There’s just no way they’re going to feed them all. Everywhere as I walk back I see new mud-brick houses being jammed into corners, and in two places whole hillsides are being shaved off into terraces. It’s an enormously complicated and labour-intensive job; nobody does it unless they’re forced to.

Back home I write my report during an enormous storm. Water comes flooding in through the half inch gap under our French window and I spend half an hour mopping up. No wonder our tiles are lifting in the living room. Tom’s in Kigali all day, back late, so I cook a finishing-up mixture – rice, cabbage, carrots onions and tomatoes, with a bit of grated cheese on top. Not very sophisticated but its filling.

Best thing about today – the long walk back from Bilingaga. I’ve caught the sun badly, but, hey, who’s looking?
Worst thing – discovering that my birthday bash is clashing with the Irish contingent’s St Patrick Day binge over at Gahini in the East. It’ll be difficult for people to manage both do’s, so I might have fewer people than I’d like. Can’t be helped. I’m only 60 once and I’m not going to cancel!