Tampoe D/A Primary School - our partner school

Today I visited the school I will be linking with my school at home. It is called Tampoe D/A Primary School and the headteacher is Mr Mark Laarimso. There are around 285 pupils on roll in two Kindergarten classes (Foundation 1 & 2), and then Forms P1 - P6 (Years 1 – 6). My intention was to spend the day at the school and find out what a day in the life of a Ghanaian child, and teachers, is like.

The school is located some way out of Jirapa to the west and therefore has lots of space around it, which makes it attractive. When I arrived at the school at 7.30am many of the children were already there, along with two members of staff. The children were cleaning the yard and the classrooms. One of the children came straight up to help me with my bicycle. It is striking how helpful and polite these children are.

There are three main classroom blocks – Kindergarten, Lower School and Upper School – the headteacher’s office/staff room, a small canteen and a large yard for the children to play in. Two classrooms are new, and have been built with help from ActionAid.

The yard looks similar to ours at home, but is sandy with a few trees, whilst ours is covered in grass and has plenty of trees. This I imagine is mainly due to the dry climate and there will perhaps be more vegetation once the rains come. The biggest difference though must be the animals. A variety of animals, including goats, pigs and chickens, wander around the yard pretty much unnoticed by all except the English visitor who still finds it very novel!

At 8am it was time for the morning’s assembly and an older boy banged a drum, just like a child in our school rings the school handbell. All the children lined up in classes, again just like in our school. The headteacher pointed out that many of the children were not yet present because they were collecting water for the school day. There is no running water in the school and obviously it is needed – for drinking, washing, cooking and for flushing the toilets. The nearest borehole is 3km away and the children carry the water to the school. This is hard work, and it would be much better if the school had its own borehole.

During their assembly the children sang the national anthem and spoke the pledge, again led by an older pupil who I later found out was the prefect for the week, and then the headteacher introduced me and asked me to speak a few words to the children. I explained who I was and that I would like to link our two schools. Next the headteacher said some words in Dagaare (the local language) to the Kindergarten children because they do not yet speak English. Finally the children sang and marched in their lines to their classrooms.


Some of the teachers had been delayed, but nevertheless the children behaved well and sat in the classrooms sensibly while they waited. Some even did some reading together from their textbooks or sang a song from the blackboard.

Each classroom has several wooden doors and plenty of windows which allow them to take in as much light and breeze as possible. There is no electricity for lights or for computers, so the school has none. The Ghana Education Service has put ICT onto the curriculum so schools are trying to teach it with the aid of pictures, which is clearly virtually impossible. There was one teacher, however, who had brought a laptop with her to help the children understand. She said it is very useful but only has a short battery life, so can only be used for the duration of the lesson. I also believe it is very unusual for people to own laptops here in the north, although from what I saw in the south most teachers had at least a personal laptop even if they did not use it for school purposes.

Around the classrooms bicycles and motorbikes belonging to the teachers were parked. At the break one of the older boys pumped up a tyre on a motorbike for one of the teachers with other children looking on.

Mr Laarimso asked me to share breakfast with him and I was delighted to do so! This was something again new for me to try. From a bag he produced a drink in a sachet and some ground nuts which he had purchased on the way to work. In the sachet was a white drink of a fairly thick consistency – a bit like the soya milk we have been buying – which tasted a little like spiced milk. It was delicious! Mr Laarimso said it was cocoa but that it should not be drunk at night as it will keep you awake.

Soon it was time for me to leave the headteacher to get on with his work and go and meet the teachers and the children, and see what they were learning. I started in the Kindergarten where both classes were sitting together with their two very friendly and welcoming teachers. In the next half hour or so the children treated me very enthusiastically to what must have been most of their considerable repertoire of songs. Every child took part and there were actions and dancing. I could have listened to them all day! One of the teachers had her own small child with her and he seemed to enjoy himself too! Teachers here in Ghana have just 3 months maternity leave, compared to our 6 months or year.



One of the teachers explained her concerns to me that most of the children in Kindergarten do not wear school uniform. This seems to be because the parents do not provide them, perhaps because they are quite expensive and they think the children should be older before they buy them. Certainly the children grow very quickly here. In every class they appear to be much taller than the children in the equivalent classes at home.

Next I went to the block of classrooms where P1, 2 and 3 were working. P2 were having a maths lesson involving finding the missing numbers in an addition sum. The children were working hard and had a good relationship with their teacher – a retired teacher who does not want to stop teaching! At one point, to the amusement of the children, the teacher drew in chalk on a child’s head! All the children – boys and girls – have very short hair. I understand this is to prevent the spread of headlice. Several times children from other classes came to watch too, and had to be shooed away. I am not sure if this was because of the interesting lady with the white skin, or something that happens regularly.

In P3 while the children waited for their teacher they read to me together from their English books. They read well and corrected each other where necessary. Later they sang me a song. I was impressed that the children could organise themselves so well, as I have a worrying idea of what children in England would get up to in the same situation! Later, when the teacher arrived they learned about column multiplication. The teacher demonstrated the concept several times on the board, and then the children tried their own. The ones they did in their books were harder than the examples, yet many children coped well with this task.


Over in the block where P4, 5 and 6 were based I witnessed a very hardworking P6 class who were having an English Language lesson involving reading a passage and answering comprehension questions. This class had their heads down working diligently most of the morning. P4 were working on the use of the apostrophe when I stopped by and some children grasped this difficult concept very well. Finally P5 were without their teacher but were getting on with some reading together.

Unlike some other schools I have visited Tampoe does not suffer with overcrowding, and the rooms are big enough for the numbers of pupils. However, there is not enough furniture and much of the existing stock is falling apart. Some children were working on the floor in one classroom. The number of pupils in P6 is relatively low compared to the rest of the classes. The headteacher told me this is because there is a great deal of competition to get into the popular JHS schools and that parents will move their children to get into the JHS they want. Most of the pupils at Tampoe transfer to St Augustine’s JHS.

The timetable seems very similar to our one at home, and certainly there is a great deal of overlap in the subjects. Lessons are taught from 8.15 until 10.15am, before a 15 minute break, and then from 10.30 until 12 noon. There is half an hour for lunch and the last lesson runs from 12.30 until 1.30 when school closes for the day. The timing for lunch is flexible because it depends when the food is ready. The Kindergarten pupils queue up first.


Next I couldn’t resist dropping in to see the ladies who were cooking lunch. The school is fortunate to be part of the National Schools Feeding Programme which is designed to increase school enrolment. The ladies were mixing, stirring and cooking busily, and were making TZ and ground nut soup. I was to find out later that this meal was very tasty. The ladies were delighted to have their pictures taken while they were at work! They do not have the benefit of gas or electric stoves, or running water, and cooked on an open fire for 285 pupils and staff! Truly amazing!


On the way back I stopped at the Kindergarten class again. They had been working on copying their letters from the board in chalk on the classroom floor, and I was struck by how neatly many of them had written. Then they showed me a game involving a group of children and a teacher sitting in a circle each with a stone in their hands. They had to bang their stones on the floor in rhythm and then move them onto the next person, and pick up a new stone also in rhythm. The idea was to keep going as long as possible until somebody made a mistake. This was a fun game involving considerable co-ordination skills and concentration. It ended after a couple of minutes with lots of laughter.

Soon it was lunchtime. At this point I returned to the headteacher’s office which is also the staff room, and was invited to stay for lunch. The Kindergarten children were queuing up at the canteen with their bowls.



The teachers gradually arrived and we sat eating TZ and ground nut soup together and chatting. These are very friendly people and the headteacher says they are so friendly that sometimes he finds it difficult to get his work done because he keeps chatting with them when they come to the staff room. I had given the headteacher our Weston Turville school calendar and the inflatable globe, and we all looked through the calendar together. I explained who the children were and that each class had dressed up to represent the month of the year. This turned out to be a good gift because I was able to explain some of the English cultural customs, like Bonfire Night and maypole dancing, and how they relate to the weather in England. The teachers also noticed the difference in the size of the children and we all commented how much taller Ghanaian children are.



Just before I left, the headteacher organised for me to take away a large bag of ground nuts. I was thrilled because only last week Cath, Aaron, Noriko and I spent ages and ages peeling a small bag of ground nuts, and these ones were already peeled, so I appreciated the labour. I think the teachers thought I was exaggerating the time it took to peel the nuts and how they made our fingers sore!

I thoroughly enjoyed my day at Tampoe Primary School and found out so much about Ghanaian education and life here for the children. I was struck by how happy the children and staff were. I realised during the day that while all the schools in the Upper West face tough challenges there are some schools which succeed against the odds. This is one of them, and surely has much to do with the hardworking and committed attitude of the headteacher and the staff. By P5 and P6 many of the children have a good grasp of English and read well. The children’s behaviour was very good indeed but not unnaturally so – as you would expect there were still some children who were mischievous, and this showed their spirit and sense of fun. I can see a partnership between the two schools working well and, although there are some obstacles, like the cost and reliability of postage in the absence of computers, there is an air of determination amongst the staff and the headteacher. As I left, the headteacher said he felt our schools linking is God’s will, and I am inclined to agree with him.

On my next visit to Tampoe Primary School there was great excitement because of a new drum! At lunchtime a boy came to bang the drum with a big smile on his face and then everyone cheered because the drum made such a big deep sound.


Again I stayed for a tasty lunch of TZ with spicy leaves, and it was during this time that the staff asked if I minded being called ‘nasala’ by the children. Often in the street they will call out to us ‘Nasala, Nasala, Nasala!’ with big smiles on their faces, meaning ‘white person, white person, white person!’ It is not meant as an insult and is therefore not taken that way by us. The headteacher explained where the word comes from. ‘Na’ was a word used to describe the British people when Ghana was a British colony, and it means ‘Chief’. ‘Sala’ means ‘golden skin’, so the word actually translates as ‘chief with the golden skin’. In fact – a compliment!

As I was about to leave, some representatives from the Health Service arrived to carry out immunisations on the whole school against an illness called CSM, a form of meningitis. There has been an outbreak of this serious disease locally. The headteacher was very pleased to see them, but they had arrived unannounced which was a little inconvenient for everyone, especially as it was 1.30 and the school was closing. The children could not go home, some were absent anyway, and the teachers had to come back into school to help to supervise. The children behaved impeccably and made no fuss, although one older girl had run off home, and had to be sent for. A teacher said she was frightened of the needle, but she did return.

Being a Headteacher Support Officer in Jirapa: Two weeks in

During my first week in Jirapa I spent time in the Ghana Education Service office. This is located on the other side of town about 20 minutes away by bicycle. Cath, Aaron & Noriko all own a bike, while Cath & Aaron both have motorbikes so we have decided I needn’t buy one myself but use theirs.

The office is made up of about 6 rooms filled with desks and chairs in various states of repair. One room is the ‘schools assessment room’ and contains a small side room which is our VSO office. We share this with a Ghanaian lady called Natalia. She is the officer who oversees girls’ education and keeping them enrolled in school. She is a larger than life lady who makes us laugh. One room has three computers and printers in it, and the secretarial staff are based in there. We can use the computers to print out items if we talk nicely to the secretaries and provide the paper! The room on the end is the District Director’s office, and there is a separate building known as the ‘store’ where a dear man called Henry is in charge.



There are many people working at the GES office, some of whom are based there and travel around visiting and inspecting schools. These are ‘Circuit Supervisors’ who are like Local Authority Advisers (SIPs) at home, and they seem to work very hard, despite the fact that they often have no money for fuel for their motorbikes. Several of the people based in the office work very hard, but the majority it seems have nothing, or very little, to do. They do not make a secret of this either. They seem unmotivated and do not appear to be held accountable for not doing very much with their day. That said, there is an unemployment issue in Ghana and this system provides them with a job. The director is a good man to work for. He trusts people to take the initiative and get on with their jobs, which is great for us as volunteers. We already have a positive work ethic and like to be busy so it suits us. Volunteers in other districts are not so lucky because their directors sometimes stop them doing things they feel they need to be doing.

Within a couple of days I realised I would need to take the initiative because nobody was going to tell me what I was supposed to be doing, although Aaron and Cath had done a good job of pointing me in the right direction. I needed to get out there and work out what support the headteachers would like from me, and then find a way to offer that support. It is important that I take their lead rather than imposing my Western experience upon them. I also needed to get an idea of how Ghanaian schools work in the north and what the school experience is like for the children here. My post is funded by a project called TENI (Tackling Educational Needs Inclusively) which is a 3-year project aimed at improving education in the Upper West’s most challenged schools. Cath & Aaron had previously worked with some GES officers to identify the 80% most challenged schools in the area, and suggested I focus on 6 of those schools. They needed to be located in or close to Jirapa as my transport is bicycle, so 6 local schools were identified for me. These schools are –

• St Augustine’s JHS (Junior High School)
• St Joseph’s Primary School
• St Francis’ Primary School
• Siiri Primary School
• Baazu JHS
• Baazu Primary School

Cath had sent out questionnaires previously, based on the ‘Headteachers’ Handbook’, to ask the headteachers which areas they would appreciate help in, so this gave me a head start. The schools are all in the ‘Jirapa Circuit’ and I was introduced to Martin Nimbare, the Jirapa Circuit Supervisor. He gave me the telephone numbers for the headteachers of my six schools so I began calling and making appointments.

This was no easy task. First the people I was speaking to had no idea who I was and what I was offering them. Second, although they speak English and this is the language of instruction, the Ghanaian English is different from ours and we find each other difficult to understand. Third, I am a little deaf and struggle to hear people on telephones. Fourth, there is a detailed greeting in Dagaare, the local language, before you can begin any conversation. All that aside, I managed to achieve what I set out to do, and had managed to make appointments in four of the schools for my second week – St Augustine’s, St Joseph’s, St Francis’ and Siiri – by the Friday morning. I was pleased with myself! On the Saturday Cath and Natalia were going to be running a workshop for headteachers on ‘Girls Clubs’ and the heads from St Augustine’s and Baazu JHS would be there, so I thought I should go along. Then I would be able to see how a workshop works, set things in context a little and meet these two headteachers. My plan was to make an appointment with the Baazu headteacher at that point.

Saturday arrived and I attended the workshop as planned. 20 schools were represented, and the headteacher, a teacher and a student from each school were there. I was introduced to Mr Dery, the head of St Augustine’s, who was lovely, although a little quiet and nervous. Meanwhile, there were some headteachers at the back who were not behaving very well. They were clearly drunk and kept making silly comments, despite the fact there were students around. The workshop was about encouraging girls to come to school and treating boys and girls equally, but one head in particular was making remarks about how it’s in the Ghanaian blood to treat women the way men do, and that wives need a good beating etc. The rest of the adults laughed, but luckily Cath stepped in and asked them ‘Do you agree with him? Do you think he is right? Should men beat their wives?’ They said ‘No!’ resoundingly. At the break I discovered that this very man was the headteacher of Baazu JHS! I decided this was not the moment to introduce myself.



After a relaxing Sunday, the next working week began and on those first three days I visited St Joseph’s, St Augustine’s and St Francis’. I can’t say hand on heart that I wasn’t nervous. I was! I didn’t know what my reception would be, whether I would be able to make myself understood, whether I would be welcome, and in most cases where the schools actually were. A peculiar thing about Ghana is the lack of street names or addresses. If you want to know where a place is you ask for directions, and these often involve going down dirt tracks, most of which look the same to the untrained eye. Also many local people either do not know where the schools are or do not speak English, and of course you must go through the greeting routine before asking them. Some schools are not signposted or labelled in any way, although all the school buildings are similar, so you know you are looking at a school.

Luckily I found all three schools fairly painlessly, and thankfully all three heads were very welcoming. The head of St Joseph’s is Mrs Juliana Yelekyere. She has been in post about 3 years, but has had no training as headteacher, and teaches a class part-time. Her school is incredibly overcrowded and the children are literally sitting on top of each other. One class has 101 children in it.


The head of St Augustine’s is Mr Dery, who I had met at the Saturday workshop. He is a friendly but quite shy fellow who is struggling a little with staff motivation, attendance of pupils and BECE results. These are the results children gain at the end of JHS at the age of 14. If they pass they go onto Senior High School.


At St Francis’ the headteacher is Mrs Beatrice Kunko. This lady is the most experienced of the group, having been headteacher for 8 years, and she perhaps needs the least help. Her school was also incredibly crowded and her office was attached to her classroom. The classroom used to be her office, but there were so many children she had to move into the storeroom. More than 70 pupils were squeezed into the room and to get into her office she had to get children and furniture moved first. To come into or out of the classroom the children had to climb over each other and the furniture. Mrs Kunko set the children some work while she spoke with me.

During the course of these three days I discovered that three of the schools on my list - Siiri Primary School, Baazu Primary and Baazu JHS – were not in cycling distance and that I would need a motorcycle lift to reach them. I realised this would be very difficult because I would only be able to get to them when other people were going in that direction. I am not sure how practical this is, but I will work on it! Meanwhile, Aaron had an unexpectedly clear day on the Thursday and offered to take me out to those three schools. This day gave me my biggest shock in terms of the schools because when we arrived at our first stop, Siiri Primary School, there was only one teacher there! Siiri has six classes, less than half full because attendance is an issue, but most of the children were simply sitting around chatting and playing quietly, inside and outside the classrooms. The one teacher was the assistant head who was teaching his own class. There was also another adult but we were unsure what she was doing.


The children were clearly very poor, the furniture and accommodation was dire, and there was obviously no education going on at all, although the children were well behaved. The headteacher was at a meeting so I did not meet him. His name is Mr Gorden Kambata and he is the least experienced of all the heads, having been in post 5 months. His questionnaire indicates that he needs help in all areas. Indeed he does, but I am concerned at how much I can achieve with him with the transport issue.

Baazu Primary School and Baazu JHS are both on the same site. This was our next stop. I was glad to have Aaron with me because the head of Baazu JHS, Mr Victor Erong, was the headteacher who had been drunk at the Saturday workshop. To my amazement he was completely sober and perfectly friendly! He also seemed to have a good handle on running his school and motivating his staff. When we arrived he was sat in the ‘staff room’ – a space under a shady tree – with a few members of staff. He proceeded to entertain us with a lot of moaning about the politics of education, the lack of space in his school (see, we do not even have a staff room!), and the appalling standards of English the children have when they arrive in Form 1. I suggested I could look into this, remembering that Cath had done some similar work in another school. One of the teachers, who was very keen, suggested I come and teach some English lessons and demonstrate to the English staff because as a female I would be a good role model. As we strolled over to the Primary School Aaron said that sometimes when working with VSO we might need to make the decision to work with people on what they suggest even if it is not in our ‘job description’ because, as they are clearly engaged, we can have more meaningful and lasting impact.

Baazu Primary School is enrolled in the national ‘Schools Feeding Programme’ and when we arrived the headteacher, Mr Mwin-Bong, was helping to hand out the food which appeared to be some kind of cooked grain. Again he was very welcoming, and despite being busy, he stopped to give us a tour and show us to his office for a short discussion about the needs of the school.

In all, I have found that the headteachers in my schools are very warm and welcoming. They are hardworking and want the best for their children and their schools, but they are working against difficult odds. The barriers to providing a good education are many and huge. The buildings are inadequate, the resources minimal, the numbers of trained teachers low, and motivation among adults poor. There is no money in the system for anything really, and the teachers are very poorly paid; sometimes they do not receive their wages for two or more months, so no wonder their motivation is low. There is no accountability at any level, so again there is little motivation to improve, and often parents prefer to keep their children at home anyway to work the land or help in the house.

That said, the following week I was to discover that there is some good teaching and learning going on in these very same schools...

The Climate

The heat is a difficult problem to overcome. In the hot, humid south we spent much of our time in the relative coolness of air conditioning, be that in hotels, in the car, in restaurants or even in the VSO office. There were also shady areas. However, it stayed hot in the evenings too, and there were lots of mosquitoes and other insects.

In the north the temperature is very high (38-40 degrees), but the atmosphere very dry. The dry heat is more pleasant than the humid heat of the south, but it is still very very hot. In addition, this is the season when the ‘harmatan’ blows – a wind which blows in from the Sahara Desert bringing huge amounts of dust with it. The landscape is arid so there is very little shade, and the sun beats down relentlessly. This makes it unbearably hot to the point you feel you could pass out, and there is dust everywhere. This dust lays upon everything outside, so you become dirty easily, and it is in the air, so you breathe it in and your nose and throat become very dry. Our driver who brought us north said his voice changes depending on which area he is in. Noriko says she thinks the temperature in the house is around 32 degrees, but outside is much hotter. The fans are helpful to a point, but are really just blowing around the hot air, and of course they only work when we have power!

The saving grace, however, is the fact that it is noticeably cooler in the evenings (not cold – you still wear a t-shirt) and early mornings so there is some respite. Also there are no mosquitoes at the moment as it is too dry for them. On my cycle rides to the Education Office or schools in the mornings at about 8am the temperature isn’t too bad. However, riding back from about 10am onwards is much harder. The heat is overwhelming and you must find ways to cool down, in order to avoid heatstroke.

The advice is to drink at least 5 litres of water a day, always to have some water with you when you are out and wear high factor sunscreen and a hat at all times. I also have a cold water wash when I get home, and sometimes soak my clothes to cool me down. I have also poured cold water over myself while I'm out - although the Ghanaians view this as a little strange! Clothes dry within an hour, even if you are wearing them!

Luckily I seem to be acclimatising and I'm starting to find it a little easier, although I still notice the heat and I still have to take care. In March the season will change to the hot season, believe it or not! This will mean that the harmatan winds will stop and the nights will not be cooler; it will get hotter and hotter until eventually in May the rains will come. I will not be here for the rains, but I'm told there will be very very heavy showers and floods, although it does not rain all the time. Many roads will become unpassable, because they are dirt tracks and will become deep mud. The volunteers will not be able to reach all the schools. The good thing will be that all the trees and plants will start to grow again, and fruit will be plentiful.

And sadly.... the mosquitoes will return!

Trip to the Hippo Sanctuary

On Saturday 6th February we visited Wechiau which is south of Jirapa near the Burkina Faso border. This is the location of the famous hippo sanctuary. First Cath, Aaron, Noriko and I packed our essentials for staying the night outside and made the journey into Wa. Here we met up with some other volunteers – Cam, Jude, Laura and Patricia – and went to buy provisions in the market. We bought bread, salad, peanut butter, fruit and drinks.

Next we made the journey to Wechaiu. Half of the road is tarmac but there is a significant section of the 53km route that is simply dirt track and although it was a tough journey on the motorbikes it was still exhilarating. The bikes ahead kicked up lots of dust and the scene looked like something from a film.

Finally we arrived at the centre. Sadly we had to split into two groups because only six of us would be able to sleep on the treetop platform near the river. Aaron, Noriko, Patricia and Laura stayed on the roof of the lodge.

The Lodge Sunset at the lodge

The rest of us made another journey to the treetop platform near the river. Here we enjoyed a night under the stars with our share of the food and drink. All around us we could hear rustling and snorting sounds in the brush, and some of these were made by hippos – but we did not see them! Although hippos are vegetarian they are very strong animals and could kill a human in self-defence, so it is best not to sleep on the ground. Night fell rapidly and the atmosphere was amazing. The guide had provided us with a small mattress each and a mosquito net and light, and there we slept under the stars – me for the first time without a tent. It was fun to spend time outside in the evening in good company and chatting the night away.

Incredibly it got cold overnight. This was the first time I had felt cold since I arrived in Ghana! We had to use blankets and fleeces.... Early the next morning we rose and awaited our guide with the boat and the rest of our group.

Sunrise at the treetop platform

Finally they silently glided into sight on the river, and we stepped into our boat. All had had a good night’s sleep and were ready to search for the hippos.

Our guides gently steered the boats downriver to where a family of hippos was wallowing. We watched from a safe distance, entranced. These massive animals were thoroughly enjoying their leisure. Sometimes we could see the tops of their bodies and sometimes they were completely submerged. Occasionally one would yawn with its massive jaw wide, and often they would snort or even nuzzle at each other. There were hippos of all ages and sizes, and the guide said they live to between 30 and 50 years of age. A female hippo will give birth once every two years and gestation is just under 8 months. A male hippo will have several ‘wives’ and will see off other suitors!



We spent about half an hour just sitting and watching before returning to our camp and gathering our belongings for the journey back to Wa. Here we stopped for a well-earned cold drink and a variety of hot food. I had TZ (a mixture of pounded beans which is a bit like mashed potato) with groundnut soup filled with vegetables and some chicken. As I don’t often eat meat now – Jirapa has no restaurants and to cook our own meat we would have to kill an animal or see it chopped up at the side of the road - this was a real treat.

Before our trip back to Jirapa we stopped by to say hi to Linda and Haydn. These are two volunteers who are husband and wife and are here on a 6 month placement working with headteachers in Wa. We picked their brains for a while about running headteacher workshops, and arranged to come and observe one in 3 weeks’ time. Cath and I hope to be able to run some of our own here in Jirapa during March.

Before long it was time to return home, have showers (everything – and I mean everything – was dirty and dusty!) and collapse into bed ready to face the week ahead. As ever though, Aaron had several visitors. One of them was Mark who is a headteacher in a school called Tampoe which is just outside Jirapa and is a Primary School. Mark is very friendly and his English is good. Aaron has worked with him and says he runs his school well. He would be open to building a partnership between his school and mine. At last there is the glimmer of a possibility of this! There are several challenges to building a lasting partnership between schools in the UK and schools here in northern Ghana. One is that there are no computers so email is impossible, and the schools have no money so they cannot afford to post anything. Another is that some of the teachers are unmotivated, and headteachers have an enormous amount to do sorting out their schools, so they have little time for international links. Also the children’s literacy skills are not good, and their lives are so far removed from the lives of children in the UK that they would find it hard to relate to each other. That said, the fact that I have been here and have come to know the difficulties faced by the schools means that I may be able to forge meaningful links.

I plan to visit Mark’s school later in the week to take a tour and talk through the possibilities.

The Ghanaian Education System: A Background

The Ministry of Education is a government department and is similar to the British DCSF. It is responsible for formulating national educational policy. The Ghana Education Service is similar to the British Local Authorities. Like Local Authorities they are represented in all regions of Ghana, and are responsible for implementing national policies in schools. Part of this involves ‘Circuit Supervisors’ who are a bit like School Improvement Partners or advisers in the UK. Each Circuit Supervisor is allocated an area and is responsible for assessing and supporting the schools in it.

There are several types of school in Ghana. Some are state schools and some are private, and many are affiliated to a faith, such as Methodist or Seventh Day Adventist. Schools of the same type have the same coloured uniform. For instance, in Jamasi, where we visited two schools, state school pupils wore brown uniforms and those in Methodist schools wore yellow. Children in private schools wear the colour chosen by the ‘proprietor’.

The schools are arranged into year groups. First there are Kindergartens, where the children are the same age as the British Nursery and Reception Classes or Foundation 1 and 2. Next there are Primary Schools which take pupils from P1-P6, which is the same as the British Year 1 – Year 6. After P6 pupils transfer to Junior High Schools for Years 7, 8 & 9, and on completing their final year, take examinations called the Basic Examination Certificate Education (BECE) in a range of subjects. If they pass the BECE they qualify to attend a Senior High School for Year 10 to Year 13. There are also universities and colleges.

The picture is of St Augustine's Junior High School which the nearest school to where I live.

The school day starts at 7.30am when the children clean the classrooms and sweep the yard before an assembly where they do a range of things together including singing the national anthem, praying and reciting the pledge. The school day for the children ends at 1.30pm. Teachers stay for about an hour after this to mark books and prepare lessons, or for training.

For some years Ghana has been working towards providing an effective state education for all children. However, it was only in 2005 that a basic education became free to all, and compulsory. Since then numbers of pupils in schools have increased significantly. Whilst there is some very good teaching and there are some very good schools across Ghana, there are many barriers to providing a good basic education, and also to ensuring that all children attend school.

First there are problems with buildings and basic facilities. Because of the large numbers of pupils there are not enough classrooms or furniture. In one primary school I visited yesterday, seventy Year 4 pupils were squeezed into a room which used to be the headteacher’s office. To get into and out of the room pupils had to walk over the furniture and over other children. The headteacher’s office is attached to the classroom in what used to be the storeroom, and is still filled with stored items. To gain access to her office the headteacher asks children to move furniture and themselves so she can open the door.

Most schools do not have toilet facilities, although there are usually ‘urinals’ for boys and girls, and staff. When we questioned VSO about it they said children and staff cope with this by regulating what and when they eat so they do not need to use the toilet during the school day. For girls in particular this is a serious barrier to education. There is also a serious lack of resources. For instance, very few schools have electricity, let alone computers, and the textbooks and learning resources are old and out of date.

Second there are problems with inadequate numbers of teachers. The teaching profession has low status and teachers are poorly paid, so it is hard to attract people to train. Teachers are not paid for taking on additional responsibilities and headteachers are not paid more than teachers. Motivation generally is very low and many teachers do not turn up regularly or do not arrive promptly. Many classes are very large. I saw a P1 class on Monday with 101 pupils in it. Each class has one teacher and this person may not even be trained. The Ghana Education Service, which deploys staff to different schools – in the same way as British Local Authorities used to do – says that it will provide an extra teacher for a large class if the school provides an extra classroom to put half of the class in. In most cases the school is unable to do this. In order to address the problem some schools have adopted a ‘shift system’. This is where half of a large class will have the room and a teacher for half of the day, and the rest of the class will have the room and a different teacher for the second part of the day. This has definitely helped, but is being discouraged by the Ghana Education Service, probably because the pupils are not receiving their full time entitlement in school.

In order to address the lack of teachers Ghana is trying to train as many as possible. On our visit to Cape Coast University we discovered that teachers spend four years training to teach. For the first two they do not go into schools. Instead they continue learning basic skills – reading, writing and maths – and learn about teaching through role play. They then go into schools during the last two years of their training to learn to teach. It is extremely rare for somebody on a teacher training course to fail, and once in schools, teachers who do not perform well are not dismissed, but rather are moved by the Ghana Education Service to other schools. Therefore, the standards of teaching and learning in schools are variable.

Another way of addressing the lack of teachers is to take on ‘pupil teachers’ ‘national youth employees’ and volunteers. These people have had no formal training and are learning on the job. Many of them are in charge of classes. Again the quality of teaching and learning is variable as a result. A typical school with 6 classes of 70 or 80 pupils would have around 5 trained teachers and 3 or 4 untrained people, although this varies.

Another problem facing the education system is the treatment pupils sometimes receive from teachers. Some teachers do not respect pupils. Use of the cane by the headteacher is still legal in Ghana, but many teachers continue to use it anyway. Public humiliation is regularly used as a punishment, often because a child has not understood what has been taught, and pupils carry out errands for teachers during class time, such as clearing litter or even cleaning a teacher’s house.

There is also a problem with equality. Girls have historically been treated differently from boys within the Ghanaian culture, and have been expected to stay at home, clean and cook, and help with the younger children in the household – much as it was many years ago in the British culture. They have previously been denied an education. This attitude towards girls persists in many areas today, particularly in rural areas, including by some teachers who do not believe that girls are as intelligent as boys. Therefore, attendance in school by girls tends to be much lower than boys, and expectations of their performance are also lower than those of boys. Children with special needs are not treated equally by some communities, families and teachers either.

Finally there is the attitude of some of the communities and parents. There is a high drop-out rate, particularly towards the end of primary school and within the Junior High schools. When asked, parents cite school conditions, poor teaching, distance from home to school, and the need for children to work on family farms or help with domestic chores. There is also the problem where the parents cannot afford for the children to eat at school. In some areas this is being addressed by the ‘National Schools’ Feeding Programme’, where pupils are provided with free food. However, this is not nationwide and it is not known how long it will be funded.

The picture is of a class of Year 2 pupils at a village school. They had turned up to school to find the teacher had not, so they were spending the day simply sitting in their classroom doing their own thing with barely a sound. This is not unusual. Many of their peers had not come to school for a variety of reasons and these ones may well have been sent by their parents because the school is part of the schools' feeding programme. Of the schools we saw today this one was doing fairly well, because at least the other classes had a teacher. We visited a school further down the road where there were 6 classes, and only one teacher had turned up. He was teaching his own class adequately but ignoring the other children who were wandering around the yard and other classrooms. The headteacher was absent. There was one other adult in the school, but she appeared not to be a teacher and did not appear to be doing anything. The deprivation in these village schools is shocking.

There are many local languages in Ghana – some 77 – and because of this children have been educated in English for many years. However, there is now a programme in place to start the children’s education in their local language and gradually introduce them to English, until by P4 they are educated completely in English. The very valid reason for this is that it helps children with their literacy skills if they start in their own language. The approach has worked very well in Kenya. However, there is a challenge in Ghana, because, unlike in Kenya where all the children speak Swahili as their first language, there is such a large number of local languages. The government has therefore selected the seven most commonly spoken ones. This means that some children are being introduced to yet another language when they arrive in Kindergarten, before being introduced to English. It also means that teachers of younger children are unable to move to different areas of the country to teach because they do not speak the local language.

It is worth noting that there is a massive ‘north-south divide’ in Ghana. The south is heavily populated while the north is very rural with far fewer people. The weather in the south is hot and humid, and the vegetation is lush, while in the north it is hot and dry, and there is poor vegetation. Whilst there are poor people in the south, there is also a degree of wealth, but in the north the people are mainly very poor subsistence farmers. This is reflected in the education system. The schools in the north are far less resourced than in the south, with overcrowding of classrooms being common, and the teaching and learning standards are lower. Many children arriving in Junior High Schools cannot yet read or write. There are fewer children attending school and the drop-out rate, particularly for girls, is very high. Those with good educations often move to the south where there are greater opportunities, thereby compounding the problem for the north.

These are the reasons VSO places its volunteers in the north of the country. Here there is a programme called TENI (Tackling Educational Needs Inclusively) which VSO is very involved with. The aim of TENI is to improve the education in 80% of schools in several areas of the north, including Jirapa. The 80% have been selected using a variety of criteria, including overcrowding, resources, teaching & learning, and results. The schools I am supporting in the Jirapa area are all schools identified for the TENI project.

My job is to support the headteachers in leading and managing their schools. Most have received very little, if any, training in being a headteacher, and many have been promoted by default. By this I mean that headteachers must be trained teachers, so there is a limited pool to select from. Often when a headteacher leaves a school the trained teacher who has been in post the longest automatically takes over, without interview. Therefore, there is a great need for high quality training in the leading and managing of people, raising teaching and learning standards and working with finance. Many of the headteachers I have met have requested training in appraisal of staff and lesson observation.