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EDUCATION FOR
PASTORALIST COMMUNITY
Afya Bora on
realizing the problem
linked to the
nomadic lifestyle of the Maasai community,
decided to establish mobile Pre-School classes, which normally move with the
pastoralist community.
Intention
The experience has
shown that the Maasai-children are stressed during their first year in
primary school because every lesson and every topic is taught in
Swahili-language. The
basic advantage of the Pre-Schools is to provide orientation to the children
joining the school where they are tought
Kiswahili and
English.
As a consequence
many of the children have immense difficulties in following the lessons in
primary school. Therefore they get demoralized and it happens often that
they run away from school or result to poor attendance and performance.
There are of course those who struggle hard to learn the Swahili-language
and are able to follow properly the lessons in class. Many of these kids
could do much better if they could get an opportunity of
Pre-Primary-School-education, particularly in Swahili-language. Therefore
the main intention of this project of Pre-Primary-Schools in this community
is to fill the gap of the missing language knowledge and a modern education
orientation.
It is also
important to mention that formal education in the Maasai-Community is not
yet popular as a necessity of life. The actual statistics shows that about
90% of the people are illiterate.
In the past, the
Maasai did not face many difficulties by lack of formal education because
they concentrated on pastoral land-use. Since about twenty years ago,
much of the community grazing land has been utilized for other purposes of
national interest. As people became aware of their situation of loosing much
of their grazing land they considered other possible alternatives. They
realized that these alternatives, like seeking employment or trading, needed
some kind of formal education.
However, many of
these people are lacking the necessary routine of sending their children to
attend the daily classes in primary schools. The
Pre-Primary-School-education is therefore a good start to sensitize the
parents and their children for this purpose.
After establishing
the Pre-Primary School system and the parents getting used to the procedure
of sending their children to school every day, it is interesting to
discover, that they are now starting to send their children also for primary
education on their own will.
School Timetable
Classes begin at
8:30 a.m. to 12.00 noon with a 30 minutes break.
Afternoon
from 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. the
school provides
adult education,
conducted by the
pre-school teachers after which they utilize the remaining
time for the
following day normal routine.
Responsibilities
Running any
project, there is a need for unquestionable transparency and active
management-team. Therefore the mechanism used in this case is as follows
(also see
the organizational
map...):
There are sixteen
teachers (two for each school) as there are eight
schools.
The
responsibilities of these teachers are as follows:
1) to
follow the formulated curriculum;
2) to
educate the children in a line with community-values;
3) to
follow the school timetable according to agreed working-hours. If for any
reason the teacher in-charge is unable, he / she has to ensure that the
assistant-teacher is in place;
4) to
care for the school properties;
a)
black-board
b)
attendance-register
c)
books
d)
school-report-file
e)
school-metal-box
for the books
f)
chalks, pencils,
sharpeners
5) to
write a monthly report and to make sure that this report reaches the
Coordinator in time;
6) to
ensure that the children are always well equipped with all the material they
are supposed to have in class.
7) to
maintain the daily attendance register.
If there are any
instabilities or questions concerning the school-programme
the responsables
contact
the parents
representative at the school-centre,
the
educational-consultant or
the Project
Coordinator (Afya Bora).
There are eight parents representatives:
The responsibilities of these representatives are as follows:
1.
to sensitize the community about the school-project;
2.
to mediate between the parents and the school teachers;
3.
to observe that the teachers are on duty at all times
4.
to observe that the
children go to class according to the
agreed school
daily time table;
The parent’s
representatives should contact:
·
the
Education-Consultant, or
·
the Project
Coordinator (Afya Bora).
There is
one responsible Education-Consultant for the whole project.
The
responsibilities of this consultant are the following:
1.
to formulate the
school-curriculum;
2.
to train the
teachers according to the curriculum;
3.
to prepare and
conduct at least three seminars per year;
4.
to organize
teaching orientation training in nearby primary-schools at least once a
year for the Pre-School-Teachers;
5.
to evaluate every
school at least three times a year and to recommend the teaching abilities
of individual teachers;
6.
to hand over the
teaching allowance to the teachers in time.
If there are any
instabilities or questions concerning the school-programme the
Education-Consultant should contact the Project Coordinator (Afya Bora).
Teachers Selection
Teachers are
picked by the community from among the class VII school leavers
in the respective
school centres.
The Pre-School and
the teaching staff belong to the community who posses the
ownership of the
project. Afya Bora and partners are only there to
facilitate and
offer necessary support.
The teachers are
given a one-week seminar after every four months (three times
a year) so as to
update their teaching capability.
An education
specialist hired by Afya Bora conducts the Seminars.
Afya Bora takes
careful measures to ensure that there is no duplication of efforts
by implementing
activities which are already being implemented by another
organization /
facilitator in the same area.
Due to the nomadic
nature of life style in the district, when the head of the clan
decides to move in
search of pastures the respective mobile school and teacher
also moves with
few basic teaching materials on the back of donkey. Mobile
schoolteachers are
based at clan level, and most of them are women.
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