For those familiar with the TV series “Teachers”, Donkeys are regular inhabitant of schools, along with cows, goats and a variety of other animals.

If you don’t already know, the reason for me being out here is to help introduce a more student-centred and active learning approach to teaching here.  Yesterday, 2 weeks and 15 minutes after the initial planned starting date, the Higher Diploma Programme finally began here at Adola Centre for Teacher Education.

“But what”, I hear you cry, “have you been up to then, Mr Silver?  You have already been there for 8 weeks!”

Fret not.  I have not been idling away the hours twiddling my thumbs, relaxing in hot springs, or partying in Hawassa.

When I first came to Adola, I wanted to get an idea of what school life was really like and to this end I requested that I be taken to visit a few local schools.  The Vice-dean was most accommodating and within a few days of my arrival in Adola we were off to visit the closets school, which, incidentally, was also where the Vice-dean’s children go.

Students gather at the end of the day to sing and watch the flags being lowered.

Some of you will be more familiar with the typical English classroom.  30 attendant pairs of eyes gaze eagerly to the front of the class ready to assimilate the great wisdom of their teacher… well maybe that’s not quite the image that immediately comes to mind, but certain features such a walls decorated with student work, large windows, whiteboards, tables and chairs may well come to mind.

Before I came out here I was expecting large classes and basic facilities – in particular in the more rural schools.  Fortunately my first visit was to a school in the town and Adola is a fairly large place, even if a little remote, so I knew that it would be some mud hut in the middle of nowhere.

Here is an example of one of the schools we visited.

The first thing that struck me was the setting.  The school seemed to fill quite a large area and there were a number of single story buildings that I presumed were the classrooms.  The outside space seemed very pleasant and dotted around the place were a number of physics equations.  How wonderful, I thought, good to see they are promoting the most important subjects. Our first stop was a fairly basic office where the Vice-dean introduced us to the vice-director of the school.  It would appear that our visit was not expected, but nevertheless we were able to have a tour, once the initial niceties were completed.  I entered my first Ethiopian classroom.

As my eyes slowly adjusted to the dark of the room, they widened as I attempted to count the number of students staring back at the stranger who had just walked in.  Needless to say foreigners are rare in these parts.  I must have come as quite a shock.  I lost count somewhere after 90, but was told there were over 100.  I was almost as shocked as the students.  The lesson naturally had come to a grinding halt- the teacher had had no warning of this English invasion of his class.  I dread to think how he managed to get them back on task.  The only comparison I can think of is as if a circus, complete with clowns, acrobats and a lion or two had just traipsed through an English classroom.

Child-filled room with low lighting levels.

Naturally, it was not enough to distract one class in such a manner, we had to interrupt another teacher mid-flow, presumable to see if our results could be reproduced.  They could.  After we toured some of the other parts of the school – a locked library with a scattering of outdated text books and clearly unused; a resource centre that was more death trap than storage space for teaching aids and sparse staffroom.  As we made our way back to the college I gingerly suggested that it would be useful to actually see a couple of lessons.  “No problem”, said the vice-dean,” we’ll go back this afternoon.”

Well, we’d ruined the morning shift, why not ruin the afternoon one as well?

And this was only the beginning.  We visited three other schools over the next few days and then I got called into the Dean’s office.  I wondered what huge faux pas I had committed.  I fretted over who in the community I had offended. Prepared for a dressing down, I was surprised to discover that instead the Dean of the college wanted me to visit more schools, including the local High School and Preparatory School (this is roughly equivalent to a sixth form college).  I had been given a mission… from the local education board.  Sadly there was no super hero costume or badge to go with the role and as I didn’t really fancy the idea of wearing tights I was quite relieved.

A P.E. Lesson? This one didn’t seem to involve much movement beyond clapping and singing.

And so, the month of October was put over to visiting a number of schools within the local area and handing out questionnaires for the directors and teachers of the schools visited.  It was quite an experience.  At one school, it was break time as I approached and jumping out of the 4WD I was mobbed by the entire school.  I made the mistake of shaking one hand and that was it, every child within a mile radius seemed to want to have a turn.  I needed more hands.  Finally I was hustled into the relative sanctuary of the director’s office.

There is a huge range between the schools and not just those in the countryside and those in the town.  Some schools have basic libraries with a few books, some have a library with no books and some have no library at all.  Many of the classrooms are dark, with light coming in through small windows, whereas others have airy classrooms with large, glass-filled windows.  Some are mud constructions, some are wood and others concrete and the class sizes seem to vary with some as small as 40 and one which had over 130 students crammed 5 to a desk.  The average was probably somewhere about 80.  My fervent wish for smaller class sizes back in the UK, felt somehow foolish now.

A library, with books. This was the best one we saw and one that was actually being used. Most of them were locked.

The range in teaching was huge too.  In some places the teachers ran out of material to teach and just stopped.  A couple of times I whispered to the vice-dean to ask what was happening.  He was as clueless as I was.  On the other hand some teachers really made an effort to engage their pupils, but use of active learning was rare – which is sort of how this ties into my being here.

This class had over 130 pupils. I don’t know where the 20 who were absent the day we visited would sit.

However, I also had a parallel assignment.  My mission to identify any needs and make proposals to suggests solutions and who would be responsible.  The last visits took place on Thursday 31^st October, only some of the questionnaires had been returned.  Could I finish my report by the end of the weekend so that it could be presented on the following Monday, enquired the Dean.  This of course meant finishing it by the end of the Friday so that one of my colleagues here could translate it into Afan Oromo, the local language.

It is quite common for the classrooms to have the outside walls decorated with educational materials, but no the inside.

Friday was a busy day.  13 pages of formal English later, I was ready Saturday morning to have a meeting with the Vice-dean and the head of the Education department at the college, who had drawn the short straw of having to translate.  The meeting took 4 hours and I am still not convinced that it was clear what I had written.  I inwardly cursed my training in report writing that encouraged the use of the passive voice and writing in the third person.  Still, I managed to raise a laugh with my proposal for a mobile library to bring something to the rural schools.  They left it in though – after all the officials at the education board should get to share in the joke.  I tried to not be offended, I felt that this was one of my less crazy suggestions.  Maybe they agreed and had just been polite on the others.

Monday came and went with no meeting.  Wednesday has come and gone with no meeting.  I have learned that such delays are common place.  I think the translation is finished now.  I expect to be told 5 minutes before –“We’re going to the meeting with the local education office now”.  A little part of me hopes that they will forget to take me – I am happy to miss the glory if it means avoiding a long meeting in an unfamiliar language… the ones back home in English were bad enough!

So, as you can see, my time has been filled with meaningful work.  Maybe they will take on board some of my suggestions.  Maybe when my time here comes to an end there will be a bus driving around to the rural schools with a load of books on board.  I don’t expect anything, but I do keep hoping.