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Education East Africa Quarterly Report

Silver Lining Update from Kigali
November 2017

This project report is a submission to GlobalGiving's 2017 Fail Forward Contest, where organizations are asked to share a story of when they tried something new that didn't go as planned and how they learned from it. Enjoy!

GlobalGiving is encouraging its members to talk of failures as part of its Fail Forward competition. The competition closes on Friday 27^th October, and it so happens that we have a very recent failure which has turned out for the best.

The pupils and teachers in our project schools have performed near-miracles. By using our New Original English Course (NOEC) books the P1 pupils who are only 7 years old, have an excellent command of the English they have learned. They are using the sentence patterns and structures quite freely and they are speaking clearly and loudly. The teachers are rightly thrilled and proud with the outcome of their teaching. The teachers’ own English has improved alongside that of their pupils. The upward spiral of confidence, success and motivation is clear to see.

So that all in the education sector are aware of our impressive work, we arranged a workshop for Friday 20^th October. We booked a large hall in one of the well-known conference hotels in Kigali. We prepared presentations from one of our trustees, from Stephen who translated the teacher’s books of the NOEC, from Eugene who adapted the ‘Get Ready’ books which are the introduction to the NOEC, and I prepared a thirty-minute presentation about my experience of over 23 years in primary school classrooms in East Africa and my suggestions for improvements to consider in the current system here in Rwanda. Not only that but 20 pupils had been chosen from PI in Gikomero primary school, and they were practising a lesson to be given in front of the officials at the workshop. Their reward for their efforts was a bus tour of the city, and a big lunch at the end of the workshop. Everyone was very excited and the tension for the day was mounting.

It started to emerge on Tuesday 17^th that some of our invitations had not been correctly delivered, and on top of that we came to learn that the important education officials in the Rwanda Education Board and in the Ministry of Education were out of Kigali in ‘retreats’ to discuss a major restructuring of their departments. It dawned on us that we had failed to communicate with our key audience members, and that our workshop could well take place with very few participants.

The chairman of the board of our trustees, Emmy, and our director of education, Damian, drove to where one of the main retreats was taking place. They spoke at length to the head of the Rwanda Education Board, and to the Minister of Education, and those officials suggested the new date for our workshop – 2^nd November. Through those discussions they saw the importance of our workshop and, indeed, of our work, and they promised to release many members of their staff for the workshop and that they themselves would attend. We then took the decision to postpone the workshop.

The pupils of Gikomero were initially very disappointed that their exciting outing on Friday was not to be, but they will soon see that the 2^nd November is not far away.

Had we gone ahead on Friday 20^th we might well have had a failure on our hands. With the work of Emmy and Damian alerting the head of the Rwanda Education Board and the Minister of Education, we are assured of good attendance on the 2^nd, and those officials have been reminded of the importance of our work.

The pupils have never been to Kigali, and their excitement will soon be rekindled. They certainly deserve a wonderful day out, as the English they are coming out with is wholly impressive. The lesson they will take part in at the workshop includes the following structures of English:

Teacher: Count the cups
1^st Pupil: One, two, three.
Teacher: How many cups are there?
1^st Pupil: There are three cups.
Teacher:  Put the cups on the table.
2^nd Pupil: I am putting the cups on the table.
Teacher: Where are the cups?
2^nd Pupil: They are on the table.
Teacher: How many cups are there on the table.
3^rd Pupil: There are three cups on the table.
Teacher: Give me the green cup.
4^th Pupil: I’m giving you the green cup.
Teacher: Put the blue book behind the cups.
5^th Pupil: I’m putting the blue book behind the cups.
Teacher: Where are the cups?
6^th Pupil: The cups are in front of the blue book

Perhaps if you are not a teacher of English as a foreign language you will not fully appreciate the complexity of these sentence patterns. Each of these patterns has been taught, learned and practised, and the pupils’ understanding of English has built up just as building blocks, one on top of the other.

We will take photographs and video footage on the 2^nd November, and hope to share those with you in our next report.

As the school year comes to an end, all at SPER are amazed by just how much the NOEC books have enabled the teachers and pupils to learn English.

Your generosity has brought about this change. Thank you very much indeed for your support. Your donations are giving joy to the pupils, and certainty that as they learn English they will not be excluded from their own education system when every subject is taught using English in P4.

Thank you so much, and we hope that the end of 2017 and the festive season bring joy to you as well.

Katy Allen
Director

Education is the Passport to a Self-Sustaining Life
www.EducationEastAfrica.org   

Links:

• Education East Africa's Website
• Education East Africa's Facebook page
• Education East Africa's Twitter page