A Second Visit to Atse Bekafa School

This afternoon (6 March), I went to visit Atse Bekafa school alone. I’ve given up on expecting to be escorted- this is not going to happen.



As if that wasn’t an adventure in itself, I stood in the heat of the day waiting for a line taxi and watching the breeze whip the roadside dust up into tornado style swirls. A taxi arrived and I was given a much prized front seat! Over the past week, there has been an enormous amount of activity involved in relaying the main road and laying tarmac on several side roads. Clearly, something must be happening on the main road because we turned off on what was nothing more than a dirt track going up the mountain. Very precariously. Not least because the road was not designed for two way traffic. The journey was twice as long as usual and with the windows open, with choking dust or, with the windows closed, stifling heat.

Finally made it to Piazza.

Spent the next few hours being taken around the school. This school is relatively well organised and developing well. It has a School Improvement Plan which is up on the wall and includes: Teaching and Learning, Administration, School and the Community. Teachers have begun their Continuous Professional Development – in English. There is evidence of the transplanting of the English education structure everywhere – I find it difficult to sort this idea in my head. I thought I was supposed to be developing from where they’re at but keep bumping into English educational structures that appear to me inappropriate in schools without basic facilities.



All the teachers at Atse Bekafa have received training in ‘active learning’ including the sessions that the college teachers led on Tuesday. The school now has the beginnings of a model classroom. It also boasts a media room where materials are being made from locally produced resources supplemented by an NGO grant last year. The teachers are able to go to the room and borrow the resources for their classrooms. Going around the school, there was no evidence that this was happening.
I only found evidence of ‘active learning’ in one class – the teacher was very proud that I came in to see his children working in groups.

The Director then took me back to his office to discuss ‘important’ things like how I might get more resources for his school and…… well maybe a sponsorship for his son who is and exceptional student.

I eventually thanked him for his hospitality and left.

I went off to the local film shop and managed to get some prints made- progress!

On the way home, I met another teacher from a different school. Very anxious I should visit. She teaches English. I asked whether this was the best idea. She was adamant that it was. English being an international language and the predominant language of computers meant that children in Ethiopia needed to learn English in order to participate in the world.

Having left my companion who also offered for me to visit for refreshments one evening, I headed off for home and found a mass of people around near the hospital. I had heard a siren some time earlier and noted it because it was the only one I’ve heard since I’ve been here. It was a fire engine. There had been a big fire and people were still trying to put it out before it spread to the eucalyptus trees nearby where it would have caused enormous damage and spread to the hospital.

OK that’s the main part of the evening over. I’ve come home, discussed Mekdes’s English work. Read the paper (from last January), cooked dinner (spinach and potatoes with rice), written my diary, about to put the heater on for my foot soak and get ready for bed. It’s now nearly nine o’clock.