Difficulties in Training Teachers

After a morning of working flat out to prepare the materials, I arrived at Hibret school for training. Waiting in the office, I was eventually joined by a man who walked in saying ‘you don’t remember me do you?’ thought this was a strange greeting but said politely ‘I remember the face but not the name – I’m very sorry’ He gave his name but I didn’t write it down so I won’t remember it again.

He reminded me that we had met at a meeting organised by LinkEthiopia. I remembered the occasion. Matt had wanted to look at what training support we could give the teachers and had invited this teacher along. Steve had also been there as he was going to prepare a report on it.

It was an evening meeting and though it wasn’t very late, I gave Meleshew enough money for a taxi home. She didn’t use it as she managed to get a line taxi – she didn’t return the money either. Having observed this, the teacher then asked Steve for some money. Steve refused and was by all accounts upset by the exchange. This obviously affected the teacher because he wanted to know from me why. I asked him why he needed the money since the line taxis were running and he lived in Gondar. I also explained that I had given the money on a personal level not because it was expected. He wanted to know why Steve had got so upset and hadn’t just explained this to him. I said he probably had but that he needs to recognise that ‘ferenjis’ are being asked for money from complete strangers many times a day and that for Steve, it would have been upsetting to find that he was being expected to give money again just because I had been observed giving money to my colleague.

By now, 10 minutes of my training time had been used.

I was eventually taken to a small office together with about ten teachers and my previous interrogator.

Knowing that the teachers would not appreciate my over-running (they were only there because they had been told to come) so I explained that we would not be carrying out the activities as I would wish but that I would give them a sample and the rest was written out on the lesson plan.

I proceeded – and was pleased to note that they were suitably impressed/entertained. They enjoyed the activities that we did together and seemed genuinely interested in trying out the group activities maybe with a tutorial group. After an hour, I invited them to reflect on the session with each other and check if they had any questions.

My friendly teacher then launched into a series of negative questions and statements. What exactly was the active learning content, how were they supposed to do it in a class of 70 and why didn’t I come along and try.

I calmly explained that I was sorry he hadn’t picked up on the main active learning input and briefly shared this again with the teachers – all of whom had understood. I also explained that teaching a class of 70 Ethiopian children that I didn’t know and who were unfamiliar with ferenjis in that role, would be more disruptive than useful but that I would be happy to plan and prepare to team teach with any teacher that would like me to come in – adding of course that I would expect an hour’s planning time and time afterwards to evaluate.

One of the teachers said that she had really enjoyed the session and would like me to come back – there were general nods of agreement and I felt a bit better.

I write this out quite fully because sadly, it is not unusual. There is a real need to train teachers in Ethiopia but motivation is very low. On the whole, the teachers I meet are not ambitious and even if they were, there chances of going up the career ladder are more closely associated with their or their husband’s party membership, not their level of competence or enthusiasm. Most schools operate a shift system – this means the teachers work a 4 hour morning or a 4 hour afternoon. They are expected to put in an additional 40 minutes planning and preparation time each day. Additional training can be expected by the Head and so my input is not always welcomed.

I try to organise training in the schools I can reach in blocks of 4 x 1 hours – but even this doesn’t work. They are not expected to make resources and their assessment procedures are mainly related to recording end of month test results.