Bad Education

Some thoughts based on the school that we have been working with.

The poorest always lose out. Just like anywhere, if you are working with children from families with the sort of problems that serious poverty brings, there are real challenges. Also, the poorest rarely have access to the resources that the rich can access. Three examples from this week so far:

1. On Monday I went into the school to find that not only had they been burgled last week (no insurance), but that they had no water supply as their water tank was leaking and they had no money to fix it, and apparently the government would be unlikely to cough up for months, if at all.

We could fund fixing this for what turned out to be less than a tenner, and it was done on Tuesday afternoon.

2. Then yesterday I dropped in at the school to see a separate lesson in the afternoon taking place in a separate building just opposite the school (school finishes at 1pm here). These were free English lessons given by local church members, to local children. They seemed really well organised and the children were really engaged.

But there was only one child from the school there, all the others were from other schools. in our small fishing village (just a few yards from the school), it is likely many of the children or childrens parents are not so interested. But could it be that the children are not made to feel welcome? Surely not the latter, as the school principal's elderly mother was one of the teachers at this class, but...

3. Next to the room with the lessons is a well organised library. This was funded by the Friends of Della and Don for the school children, and is staffed by a volunteer librarian, also from the church. But the library is only open outside of school hours, apparently because when children from the school were lent books, some did not bring them back. So a resource intended for the whole school was effectively closed to the school because of a few bad apples.

The principal and I persuaded the librarian this morning to give the school another chance, and open the library during school hours once a week for the children that the books were intended to help.

We're doing some real good here, but every day I learn a little more about the background and motivations of the people involved.