Work Life

Work Life

So, I’ve just realized there is very little mentioned here on the blog about my work. This could be for a variety of reasons:
1. Sometimes there is little of it
2. Sometimes, it’s maddeningly frustrating or banal
3. My work-life balance is more healthy
4. My out of work life is more interesting and entertaining
5. It feels mean writing about my largely lovely colleagues
6. I’ve forgotten to

Still.. that’s a little unfair as largely work is GREAT. So, it’s high time that I mention a few things I’ve been up to..

Just incase you didn’t know I work for The Teachers’ Advancement Programme, funded by USAID through the Aga Kahn Foundation and in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Zanzibar. I am employed as an ‘English Advisor’, which can comprise of many things:
wheeling in high finance
trying to coax the tea boy into some basic English utterances
banging my head against any available solid surface
drinking copious amounts of hot super sweet tea
carrying brown envelopes, stuffed full with millions of shillings, out to far-flung destinations..
editing, writing materials
training
travelling

The Advanced Secondary Teachers’ Certificate
The main course the project runs is called The Advanced Secondary Teachers’ Certificate and is aimed at up-skilling under qualified Secondary Maths and Science teachers. The teachers are largely trained Primary teachers, who have been ‘promoted’ to work in Secondary school due to the gross dearth of trained Secondary Maths and Science teachers. The main problem with this is that these teachers have come from a background where they are used to teaching in Kiswahili and are comfortable with their subject knowledge. When they move up to teach in Secondary they are required to teach using English and sometimes to the same educational level that they themselves received. This puts huge stress on the teacher and there is little support, zero resources and huge class sizes.

So, the course aims to build their skills in: English, methodology and content knowledge. The course is run over a 2 year period, the teachers attending 2 days a week; once during the week and once on Saturday.
At this point it’s worth highlighting the extent of the partnership from the Ministry of Education. Their role is simple:
To provide transport costs for the teachers to travel to the training
To pay the trainers.
Neither of these conditions have been met.. in TWO YEARS! The pilot course is now finished and still there is NO sign of the money. Interesting interpretation of the word ‘partnership’, isn’t it?

So, one of the big tasks I have completed is a review, edit and re-write of the English component of the 2 year course. I conducted the review in collaboration with the trainers and the re-write has led new improved, a more language focused course. There are now individual English assessment criteria for each assignment, which means they can track the development of the written English over the 2 years. We want to include a spoken assessment too, but it seems pointless due to the reason below.

Sadly, it seems that after the 2 year pilot, despite the success of the course, the ‘roll out’ or extension to other teachers will not happen. This could be for a number of reasons:
Our donors USAID and AKF will not continue to fun us due to a change in their Strategic Plan / Funding objectives blah blah..
The Ministry of Education will not fulfill its promise to ‘take on’ the course because: a) they have no money to; b) they don’t care; c) it’s too much effort, especially if; d) the donors will pay for it and run it so they don’t have to.

So, all the time and effort we invested in the review and re-write of a course that may be for nothing as it may never be used again. But you never know.

Onto merrier things I do..

Training on Zanzibar
This course is run at 3 Teacher Centres: 2 on Unguja, one rural one urban and one on Pemba. It was lovely to be able to travel around visiting them and see some of these 2 beautiful islands. I managed to deliver some of the training with all our English trainers at each Teacher Centre where the course is run and meet the trainees just in time for the end of the course.. just as I realized where I was supposed to be every week and what I could do.. Still that’s standard VSO experience I think.

Training in Southern Tanzania
The project also ‘supports’ other training, which means it gives educational ‘stakeholders’(teachers, trainers, ministry officials, inspectors..) the time, money and resources to run the training they want to have in certain areas. E.g. Upper Primary English, Maths and Science.

The regions we are remitted to work in are: Zanzibar- the islands of Pemba and Unguja and Southern Tanzania- Mtwara and Lindi. I have been lucky enough to work in all those areas and with particular positivism in Southern Tanzania.

My role in this work is to help facilitate the identification of training needs, planning of training by Master Trainers and support delivery of training first to the trainers and then to the teachers.

At first I was very skeptical about the work in S Tanzania, as it seemed so little in the face of great need, but it turned out to be the best work I’ve done. Both trainings worked brilliantly in Lindi and Mtwara; the trainers were great and a good deal of the teachers were fantastic. It was so inspiring to see how creative and effective these teachers can be, when many of them have had so little training.

I made some good friends on those last 2 trips: In Lindi with Modesta, a beautiful and immensely talented teacher, who is now working in training; in Mtwara, with Mariam, a young and exceptional woman, who has recently been promoted to Headship at a rural Primary School.

I am looking forward to visiting them again in October with any luck.

My main influence on the trainings here has been in developing the trainers’ ability to deliver training effectively. We run a ‘facilitation skills’ day in preparation of the training, which introduces the main issues I want the trainers to focus on:

Ways of encouraging participation
New methods of organizing grouping and participatory methods
Managing constructive criticism
Review and evaluation

Then we have a day for planning the 3 days training, in which the Master Trainers wisely decided to include large amounts of time for sharing ideas and best practice, which worked brilliantly.

Finally we are then ready to deliver training, first to trainers and then to teachers. My role is to observe and support as they try new things.

All the way from the initial needs analysis, through planning and delivery we involve the local educational officials; the District Academic Officers and the School Inspectors. We do this for several reasons: it’s a courtesy; it’s important for them to see what we are doing; we can engender change in them also. So, we include them in decision making and invite them to observe / participate in the training. I was dubious about this initially, as I was concerned that their presence would intimidate the teachers, but happily, they were positive and supportive.

Sharing Skills and Changing Lives
So.. all in all the last months of this have been great. I’ve met so many great people and developed my own skills in so many ways; it’s one thing to plan and deliver training yourself, it’s quite a different matter supporting someone else to do it! Also the financial and logistical planning aspects of the training have been a real challenge too. But it’s all good experience.

People worry about the fact that employers view volunteering with VSO as a career break. There’s absolutely no way that this year can be described in such terms. It has enhanced my skills and experience in so many ways; I have had opportunities here that I would never have had if I had remained in the classroom. I feel profoundly lucky that I have had a placement in which I have been able to grow as a professional and in ways I never thought I could.

VSO's slogan is ‘Sharing Skills and changing lives’; if this isn't it, then I don’t know what is.