Human resources

A school without its teachers is NOT a school. A school with dedicated teachers is a good school. A school where a teacher regularly sleep during class while the children sit around doing nothing is a school in real danger. I have seen both kind of teachers in the same school. I can see in the eyes of the people working at Rugerero Primary, I can feel in their energy who is a dedicated teacher working in very difficult conditions – who is a positive human resource and who should be immediately dismissed and replaced. I feel angry at the latter – perhaps I should not but I do.
Walking around the school and observing what is happening is such an instant eye opener and a key to understanding the challenges of primary school education in rural Rwanda. From an ethnocentric point of view, I rate what I sometimes see as completely unacceptable, revolting; from a rural Rwanda perspective, it is ‘normal’... As a matter of fact, after having looked at some statistics about the national examination at the end of primary school, I discover that Rugerero is one of the ‘better’ schools in the area.
Those teachers who want to work and get the children to learn something can.
Today I decide that I will start monitoring each teacher individually and write my observations. I will also be more direct with them and will share my perspective with the headmistress. I have decided to suspend my judgement of her. She looks busy, she does some work but she is also quite you8ng and inexperienced. In a couple of weeks, I will know for sure whether she is up to the task. I feel for the children who are left alone in their classrooms. I know that the local administration is still recruiting teachers for the school and this explains why some classes are still left unattended . I still ache when I think about the lack of human resources, about the total lack of professionalism and moral integrity of some. I had been warned!
I have to put a contextual perspective to all this: 15 years ago, perhaps 80 to 90% of these children at school today would have been in the ills, doing nothing or fetching water from the river, wood for cooking. They would have had no idea what a school looked like.
Phase two of helping Rugerero is mostly about human resources. Where do you start? Anywhere and with everybody... this has been my approach so far. Am I heading anywhere?