Education, Education,Education

This week I have been visiting primary schools to talk to teachers about HIV. This is part of mainstreaming HIV part of VSO’s programme. It also meant that Sue a volunteer working in education could tap in to HIV funds to pay for her literacy workshops. In all sectors HIV has the biggest budget. I was happy to visit schools and talk to teachers as they have a valuable role to play in HIV awareness.
Primary schools are a growth industry in Uganda with the population growing at such an alarming rate. Universal primary education is supposed to be free but there are so few resources in the government sector that many families opt to send their children privately. In the schools I visited all the classes were large including one of 136 six year olds. How a teacher controls that number of children let alone teaches them. How can you expect children to learn to write when they are crammed in to a classroom with no desks? They have to sit in rows on a concrete floor. The teacher is lucky if he has chalk, lately they have been using sticks of dried cassava as there has been no chalk provided.
In spite of the difficulties many of the teachers are trying hard to provide an education for their pupils. They can be very ingenious in using simple household items to make educational resources. I saw musical instruments made out of bottle tops, counting toys made from empty bottles and lots of posters.
Walking around the schools you see lots of messages designed to keep the children healthy. Many of these are related to HIV. Messages regarding abstinence, keeping your virginity, avoiding bad touches and beware of sugar daddies are all around the schools. In one primary school in big letters on the water tank was the message “Avoid early sex it leads to death”. I am not sure how these messages are received by children in primary schools and whether it changes their behaviour.
On Saturday we went to a fund raising event at the Masindi Centre for the Handicapped. This is a boarding school for children with special needs. The parents pay 60,000 ush less than £20 per term for education and full board. There are over 100 children from 6 -20 years. There are children with Downs’s syndrome, cerebral palsy as well as many deaf children. The classes are small less than 20 per class and the school provides physiotherapy for those who need it. The facilities were far better than I had seen in other schools and the pupil staff ratio was far better. The centre has had a lot of support from international charities and seems to provide a good service for these children. Often the problems begin when the children reach 20 and need to leave the school. There is little provision in the community for them and they have to rely on their families.
To continue with an education theme, I (Maggie) had an invite to attend an end of term Parents' Day at Ayesha's school today.Ayesha is the daughter of Rose who is our house girl. The programme was 5 hours long and I took the advice of a teacher friend to arrive at least an hour late - good advice! Nothing ever begins on time here. I was the only mzungu in an audience of at least 1,500 and the young children found me more entertaining than the performers! It's amazing how you can just look at a toddler and it will burst out crying; possibly something to do with the fact that there is a myth that mzungus eat little children. The programme proceeded as expected but I was fascinated with members of the audience going up to the stage and giving money to certain children while they were still performing, sometimes going on the stage itself. Parents were not particularly giving money to their own children but to anyone they felt deserved it. Those who had solo lines did very well. The headmaster even cashed in on this when, upon finishing to deliver his speech, he began a song and dance routine. By the time he'd finished his pockets were bulging from his admirers! Another thing that really got the audience going was a dressing competition. I was curious when I'd seen it on the programme but it really was just that. Four girls and four boys had to strip down to their underclothes and on the whistle had to see who could dress first. I just couldn't imagine that happening in the UK. Child protection doesn't come into it and of course there were the humiliated children who couldn't even get their garments the right way up never mind put them on. The audience loved it and the winning children loved it even more when they were showered with coins and the doting parents twirled them around the stage. Next came the eating competition which got the audience equally excited. Sadly I had to leave after three hours to check on the christmas cake in the oven!

The pictures are of Rosepreparing Ayesha's hair for her open day and the deaf children performing at the Masindi Centre for the handicapped.