TRANSFER YOURSELF

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been avoiding the ‘blogo-sphere’ as of late, but this is something I’m too pissed off about to pass up. As always, my sweeping generalizations and sarcastic bitterness are just that: mine. With that out of the way, let’s open the flood gates. By the way, those looking for a Rated-G blog should skip the last paragraph.

Mariel, the other PCV here in Khorixas, left last week. I’m going to try to tell Mariel’s story with only the essential details, though I may get a few events mixed up in sequence, the overall theme will become apparent. Mariel’s original assignment was at a Teacher’s Resource Center in Gobabis. On paper, she was supposed to visit schools, hold training courses, and develop resources. In actuality, the support needed to do these things was less than available. Schools, like everything else in Namibia, are extremely spread out and communication with them is difficult, more so when your office doesn’t have phones (which Mariel’s didn’t). Transport was an issues since no one from the Ministry of Education ever wants to drive unless a free meal is involved, much less to get enough transport coordinated for an entire group of schools to send a teacher or two the two or more hours it takes to get to the Gobabis TRC. Mariel, like all volunteers, learned the problems and dealt with the ones she could while latching on to the projects which actually had a chance of pulling through. The one, and possibly only, example was the library. After collecting, organizing, and shelving all the books in the TRC library, she left for vacation. Upon return, her supervisor had changed everything back to the poorly accessible, dreary disorganized state the library had been in before. The one person who was supposed to want her help and support her work had erased months of hard work without notice. With no ways of visiting schools, and a manager who killed project ideas before they could start, Mariel transferred to the Welwitschia Junior Secondary School in Khorixas.

At WJSS, Mariel was not given a classroom and taught only extra periods of classes where the teachers were absent or the subject was non-promotional. In effect, the rejects and dregs of what was left. It was third term so the school was in a state of chaos which can excuse the apparent ambivalence of the school management when it came to something as minor as a new teacher which they had to apply for! Cut to term one of this year. Mariel was given a series of non-promotional classes again and the classroom situation was still lacking.

WJSS is possibly the poorest performing school in the nation when measured on the typical ‘Grade 10 Pass Percentage’ method. Out of forty-something students in grade ten, two ‘passed’. There are big quotes around that since ‘passing’ is achieving a 40% or higher in at least six out of nine subjects. So why such a low pass rate? Allow me to digress into a brief explanation of the school system here. It is against Ministry of Education Policy for a student to repeat a grade more than twice. This ‘automatic promotion’ means that if you fail a grade twice, you are automatically promoted to the next grade. Thus, it is theoretically possible to be sixteen and going into grade eight with little more than a grade two or three competency in many subjects. Keep in mind thins could also be due to absenteeism, family issues, financial problems, or the simple fact that after grade four, all teaching is in English which is almost never the child’s home language. Secondary schools (grades eight to ten) in Namibia are applied to much in the way colleges are applied to in the states. You choose the schools you want to go to and send in your grades. If you passed, you are usually accepted, but some schools are more competitive and require high marks. All schools have a target range of learners that they need to accept because they have the facilities and teachers to accommodate them, otherwise the government will bus in learners to bring them up to the right population. The better performing schools have the ability to accept or reject learners based on grades while the lower performing schools work to fill vacancies so they have the correct number of learners. This is the self perpetuating cycle that WJSS has found itself in. Since they are the lowest ranked school, no well performing learner goes there by choice, leaving them filling their rosters with learners who have been transferred through the system for one reason or another. They pass only four percent of grade ten learners per year, not because their teachers are bad, but because only four percent of their learners have a grade ten competency.

But what’s the point? The Ministry of Education looks upon the schools with this pass rate ranking system and attempts to affect change in the underperforming schools by making drastic changes not to the enrollment or ranking systems, but to the faculty. At term one of this year, the school was called together for an evaluation and meeting regarding its, yet again, dismal results. Blame was passed about as usual. Some of the teachers stated the obvious case that the school is receiving failing learners which, of course, results in low… results. But no, that’s too logical (and has way too much repetition). The correct solution: re-staff most of the school with more qualified teachers. Who would stay and who would go was left up to a small group that included one or two school inspectors and the principal. The fact that the principal is a widely suspected pedophile and ‘under investigation’ for impregnating a learner didn’t seem to exempt him from the decision making body.

A week later, the hammer fell. The teachers who would be transferred were given letters from the principal, signed by one of the inspectors on behalf of the director though, oddly, not actually signed by the director himself. Mariel, who has come to school every day, taught when possible, and was willing to stay on through April, even though she had a far better job lined up in Mali, was one of those transferred. The subject of the memo: TRANSFER YOURSELF (all in caps). She had been transferred to the Khorixas TRC, another TRC where massive resources collect dust and the workers have been observed sleeping on the couches due to the lack of things to do.

At the time of writing this, WJSS still does not have an English teacher and half the classes sit idle as the government drags its feet on placing new teachers there. In what is really her best interest, Mariel has returned home for a few months before she will leave again to teach at an International School in Mali.

We had athletics (AKA track and field) again this weekend. Take a look at one of the earlier posts for a more complete picture of how big a joke this is. This year, it was (dis)organized by WJSS, known for their spectacular leadership. As it was last year, Carl and I were used as timers for all the races. This year, seven sports volunteers from the SCORE organization were present to help out with all aspects of the events. Looking at the task list, a SCORE person had been placed as an official for every event, twelve in total, despite the fact that they had not officially been invited. They just happened to show up and be on the schedule. Last year, we had stop watches, a tent, a lap counter, a loudspeaker, multiple measuring tapes, and enough teachers to do record keeping and recording all before the day started. This year, an hour and a half after the official start time, there was a tent and that’s about it. Since I was working on timing, I thought we might want some stopwatches. Maybe. I asked the fearless organizer, the WJSS Principal, what we should do about stop watches. ‘Use the cell phones’ was his reply. I won’t dive into the technical hurdles of using a cell phone to time six different people in a 100 meter dash, but it would be better to just count ‘one-thousand-one’ and then make up decimal places. I knew we had stop watches at our school so I asked why we don’t just go get those. ‘That will take five hours and we want to start now!’ Actually, it took ten minutes and I was back before any of the races started. But he didn’t know that since he didn’t have a stop watch to time it.

The SCORE volunteers dispersed to different events and we worked on timing. I tried to show the one or two teachers who came over how to do the timing but no one cared. In fact, the only reason anyone came to talk with us in the blazing heat was to ask for a chair or help somewhere else. We sat in the sun timing until about one in the afternoon. At that time, two teachers had come up with a new reason to make the long trek out from the tent and come all the way over to talk to us: they said their student had come in second in one of the races while we had him down as fifth. This was a 100 meter final where the differences between first and last were less than a meter. We had one person timing, one recording the previous race, and one trying to keep track of all six places. Yes, we might have made some mistakes but that’s why you’re supposed to have seven people there instead of three. I felt too tired, too hot, and too hungry to put up with this crap. I felt like the Little Red Hen and ain’t nobody gettin’ no bread from me!

There were eight races left to time, all of which were the 400 meter. Carl and I packed up our stuff and I told my Vice Principal that we were leaving. He agreed and told me to take the timers with me, though I would have anyway. I walked up to the Principal of WJSS and told him we were leaving. He had four other people on the list he was supposed to use and ten inside the tent doing nothing. Plenty of helpful hands right there staying shady.
“Are you taking the stop watches?”
“Yes.” All he has to say is ‘okay’ and I’ll quietly leave.
“But the timers need them” Strike one.
“You said using the cell phones would work fine”
“Yes, but now that they are here, Goreseb should leave them.” Strike two.
“Well, it’s only the 400 meter that’s left. The cells should work fine for that.”
“Yes, but why should Goreseb take the watches?” Strike three, you’re out.
“YOU have made choices in planning this. Some day YOU are going to have to live with the consequences. We are leaving.”
“Fine”
We’re outta there. Later, Carl and I decided this combination of stupid planning and chronic apathy needed a new word since it is so common. We’ve dubbed it ‘stupathy’ and will submit it to Wiktionary as soon as Namibia gets broad band connectivity. Until then, we’ll work on a proposal to get it added to Webster’s Unabridged 2010 edition.

I hear similar stories to these from other volunteers from many other organizations all over this country. We come here to help and are expected to provide bailouts for others incompetence. Many volunteers in Namibia find themselves treated as free labor (which we usually are) that can be given sub-standard treatment, ignored, belittled, used and discarded. The need for help is obvious, and those high up in the Namibian government have requested aid. But when the aid is delivered, we are treated with an apathy that can leave you feeling like some sort of cheap benevolent whore. Fill out a form and stick a roof over our heads and we will show your students our math, spread some computers, and maybe even polish your library’s knob. When you’ve had your two year fling with us, we’ll happily send in a younger, more nubile, virgin volunteer to do it all again. I’m not asking for a parade, or to have my name on a plaque, or even a ‘thank you’ as I gather my wrinkled clothes from the floor. All I, or any other volunteer wants is for some Namibian to be excited, or at least present for the work we try to accomplish. Tell us what you want, and if there is a thread of hope of accomplishing those goals, we will throw our hearts and souls at it. But if we run a week long training on the other side of town, could you send a government car to help with moving the supplies? If you want the staff to learn how to write a grant, could you schedule the training? And if you want us to teach, could you give us a classroom? The desire is there with an in-your-face need, but I’m here to lend a hand, not to give a hand job.