Daily routine:
~7-7:20/ however long it takes: Daily staff meeting
~7:30-1:10: 7-8 ~45-minute periods plus 1 30-minute break
~~~2:30-4:30 (except Fridays): Afternoon Study (Learners maybe do their homework and pretend to study.. unless they aren't there because they "dodged.")
?:?? - ?:??: Evening Study for the secondary school
So at a glance you would think the learners study quite a lot. But. Really they don't... They are studying a lot on paper and in theory, but the quality of learning taking place is very low. Also, critical thinking skills are extremely low, and the learners don't know how to study effectively. But anyway...
Grades 1-4: Lower Primary
Grades 5-7: Upper Primary
Grades 8-10: Junior Secondary
Grades 11-12: Senior Secondary
Learners are taught in their home language up through grade 4, and they also have English as a Second Language classes. Then English becomes the medium of instruction for all classes in grade 5, and English is a class in which you study grammar, read stories and poems, write essays, etc. Remember that English is Namibia's official language. Oftentimes it may not be very good English, but anyway...!
Dropping out at any time is common so few learners even make it to Secondary School and even fewer graduate. To pass grade 10 and receive a Secondary Certificate, the learners must pass a national exam. Then in grade 12 they must pass a similar national exam in order to "graduate" from school. For those who can afford it (fewer still), graduates can go on to study at a technical school or the University of Namibia (U Nam) in Windhoek (capital).
The grading scale varies a bit, at least between primary school and secondary school, but it basically goes like this:
A: 80-100
B: 70-79
C: 60-69
D: 50-59
E, F, G, U: Various degrees of failing or almost failing, but this continues to confuse us!
A's are extremely rare, B's are pretty darn exciting, and C's are still marks to celebrate. Expectations are pretty low. Also many learners have been passed through (or "transferred") to the next grade, so a given class will contain many kids who are now a grade or 2 or 3 ahead of where they should be based on their knowledge of the subject. For example, the syllabus for grade 6 English assumes the learners know so much and expects that teachers cover certain material which is impossible to effectively cover because 10-20% of the kids are illiterate or practically illiterate but have been transferred anyway. Talk about mixed-level classes (and a challenge and a half for teachers)!
Speaking of teachers, out of the 7-8 periods of classes per school day times 5 days, teachers are scheduled to teach for almost every one of them. There are no periods alotted for lesson planning, etc. So they're burned out. And partially because of that, they often dodge school themselves and learners will probably just have an unsupervised free period.
But that is probably enough info for now. More on Namibian schools in future posts...
From what I've read, there's many schools throughout the US that have the same conditions too with "passing kids" to higher grades, or changing the grading scale to accommodate their class & even graduating students who don't possess the knowledge or skills to be out of school. Some US states now are seeing faults of many teachers not being productive in their teachings & are fighting teachers' unions to be rid of them, tenure or not. But learning study skills at an early age definitely is important. Basically, I think parents have to instill the expectations of higher learning, working along with teachers to show kids that schooling is so necessary in today's world no matter what country you live in or in what language you speak.
ReplyDeleteYeah this is certainly a problem in many places besides here, though it is quite extreme here.
ReplyDeleteThey've been talking on the radio about doing more research on early childhood development and learning and whatnot. Seems like it would be a step in the right direction. Here, I don't know which adult would be fostering that process though. Parents just aren't involved in the same way like they are in the States.