Travelogue: Teaching in Uganda

So. It's been months since I blogged about anything. But I wrote the post below months ago, so I've published it, with some further editing. This brings back so much memories, and I can't believe it's been a year since I lived there. I should really keep up with my travelogues before I forget everything. Thankfully I was quite diligent about writing my diary when we were there, so I have something to refer to for the details.

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Primary education is free in Uganda, and Ibaako had about 14 teachers and 590 students. There are seven levels in Ugandan primary schools (i.e. Primary 1 to 7) and there's only one class for every level. Nicole (my teaching partner from USA) and I decided to teach Primary 4, which had 86 children of varying ages. The children were mostly between 9 to 13 years old, because some of them chose to start school early, some started late and some were retained. We taught English, Math, Science, Art and Physical Education (PE). We shared the topics to be taught for that semester with their subject teachers, e.g. for Math we taught Geometry while the P4 Math teacher taught Fractions. 

One morning assembly at school

Math class prep

The education system in Uganda is in English, so classes were all taught in English. The teachers however, would often mix in the native language to better explain concepts and things to the students. Nicole and I had to come up with creative ways of teaching our Primary 4 kids, who were still not proficient in English. We tried to make everything more visual, we spoke slowly, we repeated concepts and gave a lot of examples, etc. Of course, with 86 children in a class the learning speeds and methods of the children varied quite widely. The teachers told us to go at the speed of the smarter kids, because otherwise they would be bored. But we tried our best to help the slower kids as well by doing revision classes.

English class at the start of the semester

Not all 86 children were in class every day though, and that is one major impediment to some of the kids' learning. The first week of school we only had 20 odd children in class every day. The teachers explained that some of the kids were still needed at home to help out with farming and chores, and in general the parents didn't think the first week of school was useful, despite classes and the curriculum having started. Some children just don't turn up for days, and when they come back they just continue on from where the class stopped the previous day. Some of them lose interest because they miss out here and there, and they only understand bits and pieces of a topic and they don't know what is going on. There is no way for them to catch up or revise a topic themselves, because textbooks are a luxury they cannot afford. All they know is only what they copy from the blackboard in class, and if they don't turn up for class, they seldom bother to borrow their friends' notes to catch up on the parts they missed.

In general my impression of the education system is that it's rather laid-back, at least at the primary level. There is a timetable for lessons but it's really just for show because no one follows it and it's pretty much free and easy. The teachers are required to submit detailed lesson plans every semester, but all it really entails is copying the previous year's onto a new sheet of paper. The syllabus is also really just a guideline, because no one worries that they can't finish the syllabus. And there are multiple textbooks with varying syllabi and the teachers just pick any to teach. The students are required to be on time, but the teachers don't really come in till later. 

The teachers do not get paid very much and during the time we were there, two or three teachers did not appear at school for about a week, because they had not been getting paid for two months. When they came back they apologised for having been away and leaving all the teaching to us, because they had gone to demonstrate. Later on when they received news that they had been paid, they were so happy they paused class to exchange words and handshakes. 

The only photo I have of the school, taken on the last day

The teachers in school were really warm and friendly. During break or in between classes, they would sit with us in the staff room and share with us about their way of life in Uganda, inform us about the prices for vegetables at the market so we wouldn't get overcharged, tell us where to buy certain things, etc. In turn, we would talk about our lives back home,

Lunch at school was something we had heard about even before we started the semester. The previous volunteers wrote about it in a common diary, which was handed to us during our induction course. Basically they hated lunch at school, and someone described that they "felt like puking a little in [their] mouth every time they ate it". So we kind of dreaded it. But after the first meal Nicole and I felt it wasn't as bad as they had described. In fact, we looked forward to lunch every day and cleaned everything off our plates.

Pocho and beans

One of the staple foods in Uganda is known as pocho, which is made from flour and water. The flour is stirred into water in a pot and cooked until the flour becomes cakey and solid. The texture of pocho reminds me somewhat of ketupat, which is rice wrapped in pandan leaves, a dish known in Southeast Asia. Beans with gravy are cooked separately and poured on top of the pocho and served. It's not a healthy meal, with barely any nutritional value, but it is really filling and that is what most locals eat every day. Lunch was provided only for the teachers every day. The schoolchildren (only the girls) would be rostered to help with the cooking in the kitchen, and would bring the pail of food and crockery to the staffroom at lunch time. One teacher would take it upon herself to divide the pail of food amongst all the teachers present. The kids either brought their own lunch, walked home to eat and came back, or went hungry. On days when there are leftovers in the pail (which is rarely because everyone there is a huge eater), a teacher will go outside and randomly pick a child loitering around and he/she would sit in the staffroom and eat. 

After discussing with the headmaster about what we could do to help the school, we started our own little projects. We fixed the pile of 100 broken baby chairs for the younger schoolchildren, called in a carpenter to install new shutters for some of the classrooms and painted the shutters ourselves. We also painted the exterior of one of the school buildings and one classroom with the help of the teachers and schoolchildren.

I will do a post about the children themselves later on.