We have gotten into a habit of waking up hours before we have to. That way we can enjoy long mornings with plenty of time to cook oat meal porridge for breakfast, boil the water to wash the dishes, do some studying or perhaps wash out clothes in a bucket in the backyard. Then it might dry before the rain sets in about two o'clock. I must also mention that thunder and lightning is a part of every day life (as well as power cuts).
As a study of the Malawian school system is one of the main reasons I am here,
I will try to give a short description of my experiences with it. Primary education is free of charge, but in all the schools I have been to the number of pupils have varied from 60 to 100 per classroom, all sitting on the floor, which make me question the quality of the education. This far I've only once seen more than one teacher in one class, and it is obiously a challenge to reach out to all the children. Nevertheless, despite the lack of resources and the high number of children, I have noticed that most of the teachers are skilled (social) diciplinarians and that allows a certain amount of student active learning forms, which benefits the students and their learning outcome. Unfortunately only a few of the children can go on to lower and upper secondary school, and even less to university level.
We will meet some of the fortunate ones as soon as Chancellor College opens for the semester. It was scadualed last week, but because of a conflict of salary between the lecturers and the administration, it has been postponed. Since we cannot possibly know when the strike will be over, we are arranging for school visits and closer cooperation with two local schools, Mulunguzi secondary and Mponda primary, as well as getting familiar with our surrondings. Yesterday we went to Blantyre, which by the looks of it, most be the largest and most European in Malawi. In fact it is the unofficial commercial capital and it is about the size of Oslo.
Tomorrow we are heading for Lake Malawi National Park, which is something we all look forward to:)
As a study of the Malawian school system is one of the main reasons I am here,
I will try to give a short description of my experiences with it. Primary education is free of charge, but in all the schools I have been to the number of pupils have varied from 60 to 100 per classroom, all sitting on the floor, which make me question the quality of the education. This far I've only once seen more than one teacher in one class, and it is obiously a challenge to reach out to all the children. Nevertheless, despite the lack of resources and the high number of children, I have noticed that most of the teachers are skilled (social) diciplinarians and that allows a certain amount of student active learning forms, which benefits the students and their learning outcome. Unfortunately only a few of the children can go on to lower and upper secondary school, and even less to university level.We will meet some of the fortunate ones as soon as Chancellor College opens for the semester. It was scadualed last week, but because of a conflict of salary between the lecturers and the administration, it has been postponed. Since we cannot possibly know when the strike will be over, we are arranging for school visits and closer cooperation with two local schools, Mulunguzi secondary and Mponda primary, as well as getting familiar with our surrondings. Yesterday we went to Blantyre, which by the looks of it, most be the largest and most European in Malawi. In fact it is the unofficial commercial capital and it is about the size of Oslo.
Tomorrow we are heading for Lake Malawi National Park, which is something we all look forward to:)
2 comments:
Hei, Sanna!
Her i Trondheim trodde eg endelig våren hadde komt, med grønt gress og opptil flere plussgrader, men de siste 24 timane har det komt masse snø igjen. Helt jævlig :(
Følger fortsatt med på Google Earth. Blantyre ser ut til å være en grønn og fin by, mens Lake Malawi jo er kjempestor. Lykke til videre!
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