Bad Education

Scott Boyd came. He conquered, and then he left us in awe. Honestly, having such a great friend come here and see the life I’ve been living was as good as making a stew and then realizing you have enough stew to eat for two days instead of one. Maybe it was even better than that… I would write a post about his visit but for two reasons. First, words will never do Scott Boyd justice. Second, pictures always tell the story more vividly. Look at what he decides to post, you’ll find yourself satiated. Scott Boyd, you rock.

In lieu of Scott/Rob adventure tales, I want to drop one more about the education system here. I’ve almost filled my invective-quota; hopefully this will be the last. Several weeks ago, my headmaster invited to his office and presented me with an honor: I had been chosen to write the governmental mock examination for the entire Kagera region (of which Bukoba is the chief town). This exam is given to the form six students three months before they finish secondary school and take their final exams, and is meant to prepare them by showing them where they need to focus their studies. Last year’s physics mock was garbage and I often railed against my students relying on it. I kept telling my boys, “If I could write this test, I would make it much better” by making it less erroneous and more representative of the final physics test. Now, I was being given the chance to put up or shut up.

Several days later, I’d produced a massive test of which I was proud. Honestly, I believe it good enough to be used even as the final national exam. I’d researched nearly twenty physical constants (acceleration due to gravity, speed of sound in air, and so on) which would be necessary to answer many of my questions. This had been a major problem area in the previous year’s mock exam- no constants were given, yet it was impossible to answer some questions without them. Imagine being a capable physics student, frustrated and unable to answer problems which you comprehend because of an error in the test itself. I wanted to be sure that this wouldn’t happen again. With the advent of Scott Boyd, I knew I would be otherwise occupied and so I passed the completed test- constants and all- to my friend Mr. Omali, the academic master here at Ihungo.

Two weeks later, I went to visit my headmaster and to pay sympathies to his wife (she had surgery and is fine, but Tanzanians like to give their condolences for the surgery itself). Over a beer, he told me that the mock exam coordinator called him to say that the physics test I’d written was missing an instruction page. The coordinator had then talked with the other physics teacher at my school (more on this champ in a bit) who advised him to use last year’s instruction page. Why is the instruction page important? It contains the necessary physical constants. This was the most critical part of the test, the page without which the test would be impossible to complete. And my exhaustive instructions had been replaced by those of last year, those which I had repeatedly condemned. Ultimately, this means that throughout the entire Kagera region, not a single student will be able to successfully complete my test. Despite my efforts, despite doing everything I could to avoid it, my test is now the same as last year’s.

You might be asking yourself several questions, such as “why doesn’t Rob call the coordinator and give him a proper instruction page?” or “who is this other physics teacher who gave such terrible advice to the coordinator?” Let me tell you: the physics test was proctored this afternoon, and I only found out about the full extent of this problem this morning. As much as I wanted to do something to change the outcome, there was no way I would have time to get the proper instruction page to every A-level school in the entire region. Hello, helplessness.

The second half of this story has to do with this other physics teacher, whose background is necessary here. I’ve written a bit about him before, but let me refresh you. He came to Ihungo last year and began teaching conjointly with me. After several months, it became evident that he was an incorrigible drunk who would often miss class to sleep off his benders. In the evenings, he would force our students to pay him to attend tutoring in which he would cover the material which he had failed to teach during the day. Upon learning this, I resumed full responsibility for physics, and he eventually found a job elsewhere. It’s important to note that he wasn’t fired, but left on his own volition to pursue a position with a larger salary. A year passed, and he came back. He returned fresh-faced with assurances that his binge-drinking days were behind him. In retrospect, I believe he only made this claim because at the time he couldn’t afford that enough liquor for binging. Since coming back, he’s been slowly and surreptitiously returning to his former habits. I told him early on that I wouldn’t tolerate his making the students pay extra for their educations, but he still often skips class. In short, this is a man who would last roughly eight minutes as a teacher in any Western education system, but due to the severe lack of teachers here in Tanzania, he and his predilections are in high demand.

So now that we are familiar with my fellow teacher, let me continue the story. I said that he had advised the mock exam coordinator to use last year’s instruction page. As frustratingly stupid as this was, it pales in comparison to the second trick he had up his sleeve. Due to the difficulty of writing such a comprehensive and important examination, there is remuneration available to the mock exam authors. Volunteers are not allowed to receive any additional financial support outside of their salaries, so I requested that mine go towards the Positive Reinforcement Project which I initiated last year. While I was busy severely rocking the world with Scott Boyd, this other teacher was asked to proofread my test to ensure there were no mistakes. At this point, he was given the monetary reward for my work. What then followed was ajabu-ajabu kabisa (completely freaking ridiculous). Dude took the money intended for the school and went on a drinking spree to end all sprees. Two days passed and he hadn’t returned to the school. The following morning, a staff member who commutes from town told the headmaster that he saw someone resembling our wayward drunk. This person he saw was passed out on the side of the road with no shoes on, covered in bruises and reeking of alcohol. Yes, it turned out to be our physics teacher. Eventually, he made it home and slept for at least five days. When I saw him for the first time yesterday, his face still looked like hell and it was more than a week after his triumphant return. I asked him what happened, and he told me “I had an accident.” I’m sure you did bro, I’m sure you did.

To me, the most amazing thing in all of this is the fact that he is not going to lose his job. Can you believe it? The headmaster told me that he would “sit him down and counsel him to drink less.” Oh, good idea. I guess we can forget that upon my departure, all 140 physics students will have to rely on this champ. It’s a tragic truth that Ihungo would simply not be able to find another A-level physics teacher and so they can’t fire him, even if he is a drunken, corrupt thief. Welcome to the developing world…

As a final note, remember that this is a (fairly) unique situation with a particularly unreliable teacher. There are other teachers at my school, such as Mr. Omali, who inspire me on a daily basis. There are my students, who persevere despite the bad tests and the drunks. There is good in the education system here, really, but some days it just seems hard to find.