Time seems to be flying by here in Jinja. 

The new school term officially started on May 18^th. I am under the impression that it normally takes a few days for pupil numbers to build up again after the holidays.  However, we have had the added complication of a national teachers’ strike, which coincided with the start of term.  The government had agreed to increase teachers’ salaries by 50 per cent phased over a three-year period with the final 10% being due this month, but the President wanted to delay this payment by a year.  I should point out that the average primary school teacher probably earns less than 400,000UGX (£85) a month having received a 40% pay rise over the past two years. A compromise was reached earlier this week such that the teachers will only receive 5% this term but a further 10% next year.  Incidentally, I hear that Ugandan ministers have just decided to increase their own allowance.

There is only one teachers’ union in Uganda, an approach that would be beneficial to English teachers when challenging ludicrous government policy.  Support for the strike was very strong in the Jinja and Kampala areas. At Kyabirwa, the teachers all took part in the strike.  However, the decision was made to continue to teach Primary 7 as the pupils have exams in November, which will determine whether or not they may move on to secondary school.  Consequently, I was privileged to be able to spend a lot of time with this group of youngsters and to gain a valuable insight into their education.

The main curriculum areas for all children are mathematics, English, science and social studies (history, geography and the environment).  In addition there is just one lesson of RE and a more ‘creative’ lesson for Primary 7, both of which I have yet to observe.  There is a national curriculum and teaching is entirely focused on passing exams, which all children take termly right from primary 1, I believe.  Kyabirwa has better facilities than many schools with its solid floors and electricity. The desks resemble half a picnic bench with a fairly narrow top and shelf underneath and seat three children. However, the classroom walls are very stark with just a few painted inspirational statements such as ‘Ask questions.  Seek to understand’ and ‘If you try you might fail.  If you don’t try you fail anyway’. They are fortunate enough to have textbooks for all primary 7 pupils although the only science resource I have seen so far is a small human torso with removable organs. One of the reference books being used by Emma, (short for Emmanuel), the science teacher, is dated 1984, and just happens to be the ‘tropical’ version of the main biology text used during my own secondary school days. Most of the children’s textbooks are a little less old and written by Ugandans.

I had heard that the standard of teaching in Uganda is generally poor. Primary school teachers receive two years of training, but it is only offered as an alternative to taking ‘A’ levels and cannot be completed at a later stage. As each teacher is only required to teach two subjects, children have more than one teacher throughout their primary schooling.  Primary 7 has three male teachers and I have been very impressed by the quality of their teaching.

There are about 45 children in the class, which is not particularly large by Ugandan standards. They really do not progress into the next year group until they have passed their end of year exams and Emma informs me that the age range in this particular class is from 12 to 19 years! Everything revolves around whole class teaching.  However, the children are encouraged to ask questions and give their opinions.  The level of difficulty of the work is definitely equivalent to that of English schools. When I worked in Suffolk there was a lot of talk about raising children’s aspirations.  Both Moses, and Johnston, the social studies teacher, excel at this.  Johnston avidly listens to the BBC World Service and really tries to broaden the children’s horizons.

Moses also relates his maths lessons to real life situations and has used the recent topic to explain the danger of taking out high interest loans. He encourages children to come up and write their calculations on the blackboard.  Moses and I team-teach in the lessons, which I really enjoy. We sometimes sit together in the staff room working out the solutions to an exercise as there are no answer books in evidence. Good mental arithmetic is essential.  Recent calculations have all involved Ugandan shillings.  This has really kept me on my toes as there are so many noughts involved! One thing I have found quite strange is the way in which maths questions do not seem to become progressively more difficult when working through an exercise, such that question 2 might be significantly harder than question 10, for example.

The school day is extremely long for Primary 7 and has scheduled lessons from shortly after 7am until beyond 5pm although I don’t think that they always go on until that late in the afternoon.  Lessons last about 50 minutes and so each subject can occur several times in a day. The discipline at Kyabirwa is very good. Once you have gained the respect of the children they are extremely well behaved.  During the strike, the three teachers just came in for part of the day such that they taught solidly for two or three hours, and the children were attentive throughout although perhaps a little sleepy by the end. The teachers frequently use humour in their lessons, which generates much raucous laughter from the children, but they quickly settle down again.  If the teacher leaves the room, the children simply carry on working.  During the strike, the children were quite often left alone, but they patiently waited until the teacher arrived. The children stand up when they are addressed at the start of a lesson and I have also seen children kneel to speak to a seated teacher.

Up until now, I haven’t said very much about the spoken language but it is a fascinating subject.  I am very relieved to be staying in a country where English is the official language.  However, it isn’t actually as straightforward as I had envisaged. There are a large number of different languages spoken in Uganda and people are rarely heard speaking English even in Jinja.  In this area most people speak one of two Bantu languages: Luganda or Lusoga, the latter being spoken at Kyabirwa. 

The children are taught in their first language during Primary 1 to 3 but learn to speak, read and write English alongside it. Primary 4 is regarded as a transition year because after that all lessons should be conducted in English.  This is exactly what happens at Kyabirwa although Emma often moves between the two languages when giving an explanation.  All examination papers are written in English, which seems to be quite challenging for the children. I suspect that maths word problems are often answered incorrectly due to the very formal, complex language used rather than a lack of mathemtical ability.  Yesterday, I was working through an English test paper with Primary 4, which would have challenged any English child of that age. I am aware that English is not spoken as extensively in some of the remote rural schools but this means that the teachers have to translate exam questions for the children. The teachers speak Lusoga amongst themselves and often to the children outside of lessons.  Almost all words end in a vowel and I cannot help be amused by the way in which some of the teachers inadvertently add a vowel to the end of common English words too resulting in the ‘costy’ or ‘whaty?’, for example!  

On Monday morning there was an outdoor whole school assembly. I was amazed to see at least three hundred children standing in lines.  Most of them were then sent away again as the teachers did not return to work until Thursday.  Now I am getting involved with a number  of classes and I have also been asked by two of the teachers for some guidance on teaching phonics.  More about that next week!

Bodas seem to feature in all of my posts, which is an indication of both our reliance on them and the colourful characters of the drivers. Our ‘friend’ John is no longer working for us.  It is hard to say whether he resigned or was sacked. On just my second day at Kyabirwa, he was half an hour late arriving to take me. That in itself is not unusual or unmanageable. However, when I phoned to ask him to come and pick me up at the end of the day, he simply said that he was tired and that it was too far.  I thought it might be easier to dispense with bodas and catch a bus along the main road and then walk the rest of the way, although buses appear to be fairly infrequent along this particular route as most head for the highway to Kampala. However, the school decided that it would be better if they arranged a new boda driver for me. Assam is a former pupil of the school and very sweet. His time keeping is not great but we are working on it.  On the way home on Thursday, he took me to meet his family.  Communication was quite difficult but they seemed very excited to see me. One of the youngsters climbed about forty foot up a tree and then presented me with two avocados!

We had a relaxing weekend settling in Kibibi.  Our biggest challenge has been to find dog food, a lead and collar.  We actually managed to locate a store specialising in pet medication but it was some time before we found a supermarket providing everything else. Plan UK through which I sponsor a Kenyan girl called Sauda, strongly discourages mention of pets in correspondence as this is not a concept likely to be understood.  However, here in the town, there are some pet dogs and the Ugandan men in particular seem fascinated and enchanted by her.  She is a real delight, intelligent and loving and she has come on in leaps and bounds this week. Toilet training is going reasonably well and she is more or less able to sit on command.  Initially, a tennis ball was too big for her to hold. However, now she will bring it to me so that we can have a game of football. She quickly adapted to wearing her collar and lead although she doesn’t yet walk that far. I found it a little challenging taking her on a boda yesterday as she wriggled so much.  She is now chewing everything in sight…..