When you do visit schools like I do, you see a lot of things happening. Good things and bad things. Last week I was visiting schools in Nasarawa: Kagbu, Laminga, Kokona and Obi.
In all schools I saw or heard some amazing things. Like In Kagbu it was quite clear that the children in SSS 3 weren’t able to read or write proper English. The level of English was estimated by my national volunteer as a primary school level. The national volunteer told me she was really worried about the level as well as about the discipline in the school, discipline of pupils and teachers. The pupils were not really motivated, or rather to say not at all motivated to perform well and attend all classes. There was no reason to because the teachers never asked them to do well and be on time. Also as a pupil in this school you know that you will pass each year and all the exams as long as you are in school on the day of the exams. Nobody will let you repeat a year and answers to exams are written on the blackboard. ‘Just copy the letters, you don’t need to know what you are writing.’
Then the next day after another ride in public transport, packed as sardines in a car, we went to Kokona. The place where, I think, the best performing school is within the series of schools I will visit this year. Why? Because the pupils are not indigenes of the community, they come from all over the state because of the good name of the school. Most children in the village do not go to school at all. So in this community the national volunteers have to work in and with the community to sensitize them about the importance of good education.
It is quite strange to go from one of the worst performing schools straight to one of de best performing schools.
Then there is Laminga a school with ‘big city’-problems. It is a school located rather close to Abuja and therefor attracts pupils from Abuja who dropped or kicked out of their schools. It causes problems like theft and violence in the community and on the school premises. While Habu and I were visiting this school none of our volunteers was present, which was a pitty, but we witnessed a terrible beating. I think 2 boys, pupils of the school, were caught red handed stealing from a small shop. They were chased onto the school premises till close by the principal’s office, where we were discussing the project. In front of the door opening 10 men started whipping the boys. I never had heard a scream like the screams of those boys. Never ever and I hope to never hear it again. After that they were brought to the police office. The principal, Habu and I started discussing this situation. I could see that Habu was torn between the principal and me; the principal justifying the whipping and me protesting against the treatment. Horrible.
Last but not least we went to Obi as big school in a community overloaded with schools. Obi has at least 4 secondary schools and the community cannot be much bigger than an estimated 8000 inhabitants. The government college in Obi is a co-ad boarding school with only 278 pupils of which only half is staying at the dorms, the other half lives in the village. The school has so much potential; the buildings are okay, they have a computer lab, a chemical lab with equipment and a library. The only thing is that the buildings are poorly maintained (like almost everything in Nasarawa) and the pupils are rather few. The teacher-pupil ratio in this school is one to 6; a good ratio to do some miracle teaching with activities and all. Look forward to working in this school, just like working in all the others.
It is clear I choose rather different schools to work in this year. Hope I can offer all of them the support they need and want.
