I have an awful feeling these will seem very negative…
Caning
It is illegal to cane pupils in schools and yet we see it
happening everywhere…
We have a regular, weekly, visiting slot at a local school
where we help out with a bit of small group teaching, teacher and head teacher
mentoring, not to mention the odd bit of secretarial typing for them. One Monday we arrived to witness the whole
school being caned, one by one; this is a Junior High School so the age range
is from 12/13 through to 20/21. The
crime was lateness. The week before, the
teachers had asked all latecomers to write letters of apology, and because this
didn’t have the instant effect required, caning ensued. We spent the next hour berating the head
teacher for this action and offering our views on more positive behaviour
management. One of our points was that
teachers need to set an example of being punctual – and they don’t and some of
them aren’t. The head took it all in his
stride but argued that parents want the school to discipline the pupils in this
way. All I can say is that we made our
point and we may have sown a few seeds for later consideration but I’ve since
seen some of these pupils being hit by the teachers by cane and by hand!
Other abuses I’ve seen include:
·
One teacher completely losing his temper and
beating a pupil around the head because the pupil would not kneel down in the
dirt when ordered. This pupil was not
even a member of the teacher’s school; he attended the Primary school and not
the Junior school!
·
Forcing miscreants to kneel in the sand for a
while, like being put in the stocks, also seems to be quite common.
·
Teachers in a lesson pinching children on the face
(hard!) for not getting an answer correct (or it may have been for not writing
neatly).
·
Teachers patrolling the classroom with stick in
hand.
This is the sort of discipline delivered in some homes too. The other night I heard a boy being beaten
just outside my living room window. It
sounded horrific and the boy was howling.
The only thing I could think to do in time was to shout very loudly
through our window for it to STOP! I
have an awful feeling that it simply removed itself further off and I was very
upset by it! (Having said that I was
told that the beaten boy was the one I had to remove from our landlady’s roof
not long ago so maybe…but NO!)
To return to school, prefects are appointed (possibly
self-appointed) in the upper primary school.
They are frequently in charge of the younger ones and guess what they
use to keep them in order? Sticks-
imitation canes. They use them to beat
the little ones; admittedly not hard…yet…but the potential is there.
As I type this it makes me reflect on the fact that our office
colleagues always see the negatives, the problems, the reasons why something
cannot be accomplished and rarely do they see the positives and the benefits
once a few obstacles have been overcome.
Punishment methods seem to reflect this attitude, attacking the
negatives instead of highlighting the positive.
We have been trying hard to reverse this mindset but it is a very small
drop in a rather large pond.
Teachers
Before I begin, let me say that there are professional and
dedicated teachers around. There are
many who are keen to do a good job and to develop their skills …
Teachers are made up of trained, training, untrained, pupil
teachers (I think these have come straight from Senior High School) and
national service personnel (if you study for a degree you are obliged to do
National Service for 1 year which may, or may not, be linked to your degree…unless
you have an exemption!). Some of them
have only been through Senior High School.
Some have a completely unrelated degree and then are launched in the
classroom. In Bawku West the teaching
population in a given school may well consist of mainly untrained staff (this
may not be the case in other districts, especially further south). Large numbers of schools don’t have enough
teachers, hence the very large class sizes (well, there is also the problem of
accommodation, furniture and other basic resources).
The staff room
It appears that pupil teachers don’t get any salary for the
first 12 months; it is usually backpaid some time thereafter (sometimes the
accountant paying it asks for a few cedi during the process!). I don’t understand why; perhaps it takes the
office in Accra that long to process the information. I know of a local head teacher who has not
been paid since October 2012. This is
because he came from the Volta region, had a break in service before coming to
Zebilla (apparently he went off to university again without permission), and
they haven’t yet got him back on the payroll.
Rumour has it that if he went to Accra and spoke nicely to the pay
office with a “little something” in an envelope there would be no problem. But where do you get 100+ Ghana cedi to get
to Accra when you haven’t been paid? And
why should you?! How he survives I’m not
quite sure. And he tells me that when he
does finally get paid he is unlikely to be given the full amount of back pay.
Now, there is a whole lot wrong with the teaching profession
here but honestly, where is the incentive to do your best when you’re not even
paid?!
Many teachers have a second job, ranging from part share in a
shop (container…not like the shops in the UK), farming (especially in the rainy
season), odd-job man, builder etc.
There is a definite lack of professionalism in the
system. Teachers don’t arrive in school on
time. Some of them sign themselves in
and then leave for the day. Some don’t
bother to turn up at all. I’ve been in
schools where there have been only one or two teachers around for the whole
primary school; that’s when the “prefects” take over with their sticks. I’ve delivered an INSET during the school day
when teachers have been with me and no adults were around to supervise the
children. There weren’t any fatalities, the
children are used to fending for themselves, but I was very surprised! For other INSETs teachers may turn up simply
to collect their “T & T” (travel and subsistence), spending the learning
time outside or on the phone!
Having said that, it can’t be a pleasant prospect to have 70
or 80 pupils in your class with no resources other than a few textbooks and a
chalkboard. I have great sympathy for
them because the day to day grind of teaching is hard. But, I do think that more could be made of
what they have got…it comes back to the positive attitude and professionalism…and
the behaviour management too.
Oh, and another thing…teachers can be transferred at a moment’s
notice. Two head teachers that I know of
have just been uprooted, mid year, to become “circuit supervisors” (a school
monitoring role) and several teachers have been shifted around, often many,
many, rough miles away from where they were.
They have no say in the matter!
Disability
There are special schools (often boarding) for the deaf and
blind and for some mild mental/physical conditions. There are some day schools for more severely
handicapped. You are lucky if you happen
to live in their locality, otherwise there is a travel inconvenience and cost
involved in schooling. And how can you
get a severely handicapped child to a school 30 miles away every day when you
are poor, have no transport and are already stigmatized because you have a
disabled child?!
For other pupils with milder disabilities, if you can locate
them and persuade them, they should be accommodated in their local
schools. So, in theory, schools are inclusive. However, personalised learning and
differentiation is understandably limited when you have 80 pupils in the
class! Still, in my book, getting them
into school is a big achievement!
Resources
These are limited!
There are no books in classrooms.
There is nothing to read. There
are no displays (one exception was a private school). There are no games, no activities, no
pens/pencils (pupils supply their own), no paper. Nothing.
There are some textbooks used for some lessons. There is a chalkboard. There are exercise books for
writing…exercises! How can you instill a
love of reading when there is nothing to read?!
And unless you are very lucky, you are not taught phonics so once your
photographic memory of words runs out you are stuck! I should modify this by saying that the
brighter ones do manage to pick up some phonics by default but many, many
don’t!
A football match
Conclusion
This is short and sweet…there is a lot of scope for developing
schools in Ghana!
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