Returning to the government school Odupongkpehe from yesterday, and after researching the Bible verse and completing my homework, I was sad that the headmistress wasn’t in a preaching mood and did not test me on my ‘book of life’. Instead she had organised interviews with the Junior High 2 class for Elisabeth and I, which ran rather smoothly. From my interviews I found that this government school had the best selection of sports I had come across so far, including; football, volleyball, handball and netball. To which they actually brought in teachers from other schools to coach after school. The girls told me that when they had a match coming up, they would often train after school everyday, and looking at the facilities around the school there was plenty space and a large playing field just behind the school. I then managed to find one of the teachers who coached the school football team, and had a brief interview with him. His main concern was that the Kasoa area only had one local park and as it is a community park it made organising school sports a very challenging prospect. He was very helpful with all the questions I asked and was clearly not afraid to voice his own personal opinions on physical education and sport which was extremely refreshing.
When questioning the government school children I noticed that they were on average a few years older than the Omega ones. Many were 18 or older, and still had Junior High 3, and 3 years of senior school to complete, compared to the 15 and 16 year olds in Omega’s JH2 Class. The older age must make finishing school and going on to further education a much harder and economically inconvenient prospect. At 18 many of the children still at school would be considered in their households as an adult, and when a family may be struggling to put food on the table, it is no wonder over 70% of children work after school and at the weekends to help support their families. If the oldest child of a large family there must also be a lot of pressure on that child to work and contribute to the welfare of the family, and being at school limits the time that could be used to work and make money. The older the child gets makes it more and more unlikely that the parents would be willing or would have the resources to continue to support the child through school, and so the child must either work independently to make the money to attend school, or forgo school all together and concentrate on working and making money to survive. Therefore, even finishing senior school in Africa must be an achievement, and those that go onto University must be seriously motivated and have some form of wealth necessary to pay for fees and materials.
While I was discussing sport with the Science teacher, Elisabeth managed to find out about how the government school was run in comparison to Ken’s Private Omega chain. The supposed ‘free’ government school may not charge the children an entry fee, instead the children must buy their own school books, pay a PTA charges and possibly pay more hidden charges undisclosed by the headmistress. If they cannot afford the textbooks then they must go without, unlike at Omega where there are sufficient amounts of textbooks stored in the School Offices available for each class to take when required. Odupongkpehe was also a government school which worked on a morning and afternoon rotation system, where children in the lower primary levels would only come in for the morning or the afternoon, and not receive a full days education, due to the over-subscription to the school. At Omega the children are not provided with one warm meal a day and unlimited drinking water, at Odupongkpehe the children must buy bags of water and food from the school tuck shop. However, the school had recently incorporated a ‘Food for Education’ programme, an astute plan which gave children more incentive to attend school by giving them a free lunchtime meal.
After Odupongkpehe I headed to Kasoa accompanied by the ray of sunshine that is Miss Sophia, to continue on with my mini project. Today lights were on and work was running smoothly. Sophie was a enormous help and managed to alleviate some of my pressures by assisting numerous children in replying to their particular pen pal. Once finished, Sophie and I headed back to Marc Beas to pack for our weekend ahead at Big Milly’s Backyard in Kokrobite.
Small Point: I also moved in with Sophie and Elisabeth today, as Simiao is leaving me (sad face). Exciting times ahead sleeping on a double mattress...on the floor.
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