When education doesn't work so well

There were about 250 kids enrolled in the primary school in my village of 35 people; they came from all over the area. The government pays one teacher. His monthly salary wouldn’t buy a decent meal for two at a restaurant in the US.

The Parents’ Association (known here as FRAM) got together and decided to hire two more teachers. Each family, regardless of the number of children they have, has to pay the equivalent of $12 USD per year for their kids to be educated. They can pay in cash, rice, or whatever they negotiate with the teachers. Each teacher is then paid about $20 a month for their services.

There was a month or so last year when the two FRAM teachers decided not to teach, because they were literally not getting paid, not even in rice. I can’t blame them. They held meetings with the parents, who said that they couldn’t afford the $12/year.

Eventually, they sorted it out and the teachers came back to teach. 2 FRAM teachers and 1 government teacher for 250 students. Needless to say, they each teach two grades at once, going back and forth between classrooms.

The FRAM teachers have never had any sort of teacher training, but they try their best. They work with the curriculum given to them, and the materials provided - chalk, and a few notebooks.

The teachers are not from the village, and they go home every Friday and come back Sunday. In theory. Really, as often happens here, taxi-brousses are late, or break down, or just don’t run. So then the teachers arrive Monday instead of Sunday. Students know this, so they often just don’t show up on Monday, waiting until Tuesday to make the long walk to school. And there are frequently meetings in Andasibe or Moramanga with education officials on Fridays, so they frequently leave Thursday afternoon to walk to Andasibe to make the meeting the next morning. This leaves a Tuesday through Thursday school week.

Miraculously, children do graduate from the primary school and move on to the middle school in Andasibe. I’m very impressed with the FRAM teacher, a friend of mine, who is responsible for teaching the class that takes the standardized test allowing them to move on to middle school.

Going to middle school means living in Andasibe, because the walk to town varies between 7 and 25km. These kids are tough, but even 7k is a long walk to school. Living in Andasibe means two things: having enough money to house and feed the child (often living at a relative’s house), and being able to sacrifice his/her contribution to the family income. 

There are a few kids fortunate enough to be able to go on to middle school, but most are done with the educational career once they pass the test to graduate primary school.