For the literary geeks amongst you, imagine the play “Waiting
for Godot”, a play where nothing happens in two acts! Today the Ghana Education Office bears remarkable
similarities to this. As I type
there are 4 other people in my office room.
Paul, on my left, is busy with some task of his own invention which
would be very useful if he could get the regulars to be involved and actually
use his work. Two members of staff are
staring at the rain; well, three if you include me.
Now, I admit that rain in April, the hot
hot month, is quite unusual but the torrential downpour and floods are over and
the temperature is returning to its normal unbearable pitch. So, why not do a spot of work? Oh, no, nearly time for break! The last person in the office is actually
working and does, by and large, spend a large part of his time working. He is the statistics officer who, from time
to time has to deal with the demands of that great statistics office in Accra
where they demand unreasonable information in a ridiculous time frame.
Many a time and oft the GES sit
around with nothing to do; and I really do mean that! But it’s not necessarily their fault. There is a definite problem with uneven
distribution of work!
GES staff operate on a policy of only doing their own job and helping others with their job is
unheard of, even if you are bored to tears sitting at your desk and your colleague
is rushed off his/her feet. If it’s not in your job description then you don’t
do it because you run the risk of being held accountable for any mistakes. Having said this, some members of staff are
sitting around because they have not been given sufficient fuel allowance to
enable them to fulfill their job description.
Many are district co-ordinators whose tasks involve visiting and monitoring
schools. Even by motorbike the fuel
bills mount up, especially when scheduled to visit some of the remote areas in
the district. And the fuel fund is quite
definitely in the red. It has been empty
since we arrived but somehow the Director keeps managing to squeeze the budget
for essential journeys; later on I’ll explain where I think this is coming
from. I think that some officers fund
their own fuel to some extent. The
government is supposed to pay some kind of allowance for maintaining a motorbike
and recently the officers received their 2012 allowance!
The Director of Education would like to have all her staff in
the office when they are not out in the field, visiting schools. Of course, this is difficult to manage
because there is no way of clocking in/out.
As a concession she has allowed that some staff (Circuit Supervisors, a
group of 11 school monitoring officers) can start work from home, rather than
coming to the office first, because this is nearer to their circuit. Ideally she would like them to come to the
office after their field work but, using the same logic of preserving fuel (or
because they have other things to do!), they don’t. So, other officers follow this lead and also
don’t come to the office, especially when there is nothing there for them to
do. And then again, the office is not
exactly the most inspiring environment. I
don’t think the building is all that old but the climate here is very harsh and
the rooms are exposed to the elements most of the time; there is no glass in
the windows and the doors are always open to catch the breeze so mainly, the
weather comes in with you. There is a
rumour that it is due for re-furbishment at any minute but it will be too late
for Paul and myself. I doubt they would
take on board our need for a fridge and a coffee machine anyway. A decent, flushing toilet would be nice. Still, I have managed to secure a working fan
for our room: a luxury? No, a necessity in this heat!
My fan!
The storekeeper keeps his stores well and truly padlocked
because nobody can be trusted. When you
want anything you must have your requests in writing and signed by the correct
authority, usually the Director. At the
moment one of his rooms is under armed guard – quite literally! This is because one of the storerooms is
being used to house the Senior High School exams, both question papers and
completed answer sheets. I’m not sure
when these will be removed from the premises but I am slightly disconcerted
when I catch sight of the armed policeman outside.
There are 4 typists and generally 3 computers. Work for them is spasmodic. One day you will find all computers occupied
with typing urgent (because everything is last minute) reports and
letters. The next day they will all be
playing computer games because the rush has subsided. At the moment all printers (there are 2) are
broken so that should throw something of a spanner in the works! The typists work hard when the work is
available. There are certain members of
staff who don’t quite manage to negotiate well with the typists and get them to
fever pitch in less than 5 seconds…but it all blows over in another 5 seconds
in true Ghanaian fashion!
Stella is one of the typists.
The logistics officer is a very good attender at the
office. He is mostly in around 7am every
day. His desk is one of a very few piled
with books, mostly science based. I
think he is in charge of ordering and arranging delivery of stock; textbooks,
chalk, exercise books etc. He has also
recently been doing some teaching of science to student teachers and has spent
several days pouring over his books and writing copious notes. However, his work seems to be very seasonal
and currently, on a typical day you can find him at his desk watching a
DVD. Mostly these are animal documentaries
on the lines of David Attenborough but we have had some WW2 and Titanic thrown
in. I suspect that come the school
summer holidays he will be the busy one trying to order enough registers,
furniture, exercise books etc ready for the next academic year.
A similar picture emerges in the other rooms; work
interspersed with periods of inactivity.
On a quiet work day morning greetings can take you up to, oh, a good 9am! Fancy handshake, ask about your evening,
exchange comments about the weather, talk about local activity or national
politics; corruption is always a good one to get a long and heated debate!
The Director herself is quite a fearsome lady. She doesn’t mince her words and everybody
shows complete deference to her. She
works hard and tries to keep on top of her team. In theory she has 4 deputy directors working
beneath her but delegating tasks and responsibilities is not established (there
is that trust problem again), so the deputies are in the ranks of the seasonal
work load group while the Director keeps her finger on every pulse.
Despite the inclement elements and the lack of funds, progress
is being made at the GES. The exams
officer has recently organized for the Junior High Schools to sit the same end
of term test at the same time thus allowing results to be analysed and acted
upon. School based assessment has been
introduced, again to produce comparable data (an area which Paul is working on
and trying to pass on the skills for this to continue when we leave). Teachers are being trained to deliver better
lessons about AIDs and Malaria. Head
teachers are being trained to organise better school based Inset and to lead
more effectively on lesson planning in their schools. And so on!
Lunch time at the office
And then you start to get embroiled in one of those heated
arguments that take you round in circles…
Another day at the office…
Excellent - really enjoyed reading that one :)
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