This morning Elisabeth and I had no specific school to attend, so took a well deserved lie in. Unfortunately for us, our attempt at an afternoon tanning session was thwarted by the distinct lack of breeze outside Marc Beas, creating an impossibly hot environment for us to sunbathe in. Instead we resorted to planning our next strategic move for visiting and assessing more government primary schools. As we were going to 94 later in the day to help Sophie with her phonics training session, we thought the wise choice would be to find some some of the government schools in the kasoa market area near 94.
Back to our usual tro route making our way to Kasoa was much easier than our previous days of travel. Once through the market, we knew there were definitely government schools nearby as we had frequently seen the kids walking around the market. But we could see no signs directing us to the actual location of the school. With luck on our side, one of the girls (Esther) from the Junior High 2 class recognised me and shouted out ‘Miss Tutu, Miss Tutu, how are you?’ and once we’d cleared up why she wasn’t at school (some sort of sore foot, which oozed the same purple liquid that was put on Miss Sofia’s toe when she tripped) she offered to show us where the nearest government school was. Thinking it would be a quick 3 minute walk, Elisabeth and I followed on closely behind Esther. Instead we were taken on a mammoth journey, worthy of those taken by Tooley in the Beautiful Tree, snaking in and out of dirt tracks, side streets and sewers.
Finally we made it and were welcomed by the headmistress of Odupongkpehe Government School who although agreed to us returning the next day to carry out our research was highly suspicious of Elisabeth’s questions on children working, thinking she was here to expose the horrors of child labour. Once we had fully assured the head teacher that our findings would simply be for our university dissertations, she sat us down for a verbose discussion concerning religion. Although neither of us are strong believers in Christianity, it seemed a lot simpler to agree with the headmistresses preaching. She had the wholehearted belief that the end of the world was coming, marked by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the current fighting occurring in Northern Africa and the Middle East. A seriously rash statement , but who am I to question her beliefs. Unfortunately, as we had claimed to be Christians (and own Bibles) she gave us a verse of the Bible to read before our return the next day.
Along with our homework, the headmistress also gave us some insightful chat about the competition between public and private schools. She maintained that public schools had better resources due to the money awarded to them from the government, and although they did not have a computer lab like some of the Omega schools, there was a conveniently placed public library which was available to all the students. She also believed the teaching was more advanced in government schools due to the higher qualification of the teachers, which is a fair statement, but after watching one of the older classes and seeing over 70 children crammed into one lesson, perhaps a less qualified teacher with a smaller class would work better than a qualified teacher with an unmanageable class.
As we had only visited primary schools (with junior high 1 and 2 classes) we were intrigued to find out what happened after this in the senior schools (to which Omega have not quite got round to creating one...yet). Once again, the headmistress enlightened us with her own opinion that once the private and the government children come together at senior level, the private school children would be ahead in the first term, but after that the government students would overtake them and continue to flourish and achieve higher results than those who attended private school.
Strangely enough, there was another government school (Zion) right next to this one, and so the headmistress directed us to where we could find the head teacher of Zion school so we could further our research. Considering the close proximity of the two schools, I did wonder why the government didn’t place one school in a different district to allow more children access to a school. Unless it was placed there due to the large mass of children within the area needing to go to school, in which case it may be perfectly feasible. We found the head masters office, and in true ‘Beautiful Tree’ style, he was asleep at his desk. Once awakened he obligingly directed us to the staff room, where we could conduct our research questions. He even provided us with a somewhat unnecessary translator, a teacher who merely repeated what we had asked the children but in a louder more harsher tone to try and force a quick answer. Although there to help, I felt the added pressure from the teacher simply made the children rush and say what they thought was the correct answer, rather than how they actually felt.
Once finished we headed towards 94 to assist Sophie with her Phonics training. The Kindergarten and Lower Primary Teachers of all 6 of the Omega schools in travelling distance were all present and the training ran smoothly. The plan to implement phonics into the early years of primary is an excellent idea as it finally gives the children the tools to read, a vast improvement on the current rote style teaching method. Ken and Andrew were both in attendance and are clearly very keen to include phonics in the Omega schools curriculum, to further boost the quality of education they are providing. Their clear enthusiasm and efforts towards better education is inspiring and portrays why the Omega chain is becoming a household name in Ghana.
Before heading home we got to meet Ken and Lisa’s (who works in the office at 94) ridiculously cute but very shy son Nevis and Ken’s niece. Once home i obviously felt the need to get right onto my homework so went to investigate what Revelations 20:12(the verse given by the headmistress) was all about.
Revelations 20:12 - ‘And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.’ - So basically the headmistress was reinforcing her point that the end of the world was coming, and telling us that we were all going to be judged. Leaving me to contemplate my book of life, not really what I would call bed time reading.
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