Education Education Education!

I've spent the last few days seeing quite a few schools across Uganda - It's difficult to find any road without a signpost to a school, Academy or Vocational Training Centre - Education must be thriving you may think? In some schools - yes but in many it's a place to go for security and a meal. What I saw in the schools where formal teaching was taking place reminded me of the stories my mother used to tell me about her experiences of teaching in Nairobi in the 1950's and '60's.  Blackboard and chalk, posters if you are lucky and books gone out of print everywhere else in the world.  It's not surprising that time feels like it has stood still as Uganda was ravaged by the Amin regime in the mid 1970's and is only just beginning to see recovery. When you talk to Ugandans it's evident how young the democracy is. My friend here tells me it's a country that is about 20 years old.  Can you imagine that?  Can you imagine how it must be to start a country from scratch?  And one in which the people have seen the kind of devastation that destroys the soul.  In the 70's when thousands of us (Asians, Expats - a term used for white skinned people living abroad - it's nicer than foreigner - has a better ring to it) were expelled or fled to safety, buildings and businesses were destroyed, land confiscated and much of the development that had taken place in terms of structures and systems just evaporated overnight.  What followed was killings and destruction on a scale that people here just don't want to talk about.  When you try and talk to them about it they become visibly uncomfortable and you know you have wandered into territory best left alone. So,  education is rightly the light at the end of the tunnel for many - it certainly was for me and my generation,  and we were lucky to escape to somewhere that offered sanctuary- no matter how harsh it felt at the time, it provided us with futures for ourselves and our children. 

Back to schools here - and in particular the one we are supporting through our work with the Mikwano Trust.  On arriving at the school there was very little evidence of teaching, never mind learning.  I was there for hours and it seemed that lunchtime extended into break-time which in turn extended into home time. I have to say this irritated me greatly!  I went into monitoring review and evaluation mode and decided there and then this was hopeless and how could anyone expect that we would pour money into something where clearly people could not be bothered and didn't really care about standards etc.  I know - I'm a muppet - why would you care about teaching or learning anything if your belly was empty, your feet bare, there was no floor in your classroom, no light to see inside an already grey building and there are a100 of you crammed into a space designed to accommodate 50. I'd challenge any one of us to get motivated to teach when faced with such basic challenges.  To top it all, the day I visited it was raining so hard that everyone was covered in a layer of red mud.  On reflection what I had imagined I could achieve was unrealistic from the start.  The support we are able to provide will need to be carefully thought through and remain for the forseeable future.  This is not something we can embark upon that will yield change overnight - but - little by little we will ba able to make a huge difference to the quality of the lives of the children in the Mpigi district.  Once that has happened, we can begin to look at teaching and learning and what is going on in classrooms.  Sound like a  familiar challenge?