Visible Expression

The ecclesial community, while always having a universal dimension, finds its most immediate and visible expression in the parish. It is there that the Church is seen locally. In a certain sense it is...

"... the Church living in the midst of the homes of her sons and daughters..."

Pope John Paul II
Christifideles Laici [27]

Saturday 20 October 2007

Ripple Africa

Mwaya Primary School

Primary schools in Malawi are free and open to all. As secondary education is highly competitive and relatively expensive, this is often the only education rural Malawians receive. It is not uncommon for students in Standard 8 to be as old as 15 or 16 while studying to re-sit their primary school leaving exams. Recently secondary education has become more accessible with private schools cropping up throughout the country — including three in nearby Kande village. These are cheaper and have more lenient entrance requirements, but also lower standards, than government schools.

Mwaya Primary School has about 800 students from the local community. While there should be one teacher for each Standard (1-8), there is currently a shortage in Malawi and there are only five teachers at the school.
In addition to these, RIPPLE Africa is paying for seven Malawian trainee teachers. Class sizes can be as large as 70-100 although official enrolment can be as high as 150 per class. Teachers, especially in the higher levels, are under enormous pressure to cover a wide-ranging curriculum with very limited resources and time. Despite this, students are very motivated and enthusiastic. This volunteer opportunity is a cooperative initiative that involves evaluating the needs of the school with the current volunteers, our Education Coordinator, the headmaster, classroom teachers, and trainee teachers in tailoring your responsibilities to best meet these, taking into account your special skills and interests. This might mean teaching English and science to Standards 5, 6, and 7, or maths, English and geography to Standards 7 and 8 each day. The school is a ten-minute walk from Mwaya Beach. Working hours and days off are arranged directly with the headmaster.

There are three school terms, and the academic year starts in early January. It is very difficult to find out exact term dates in advance but, generally, Terms 1 and 2 are each 12 weeks long, and Term 3 is 14 weeks long. The holiday periods between Terms 1 and 2 and Terms 2 and 3 are usually four to five weeks.

The normal school day is from 7am to 1.30pm, Monday to Friday, for Standard 2 upwards. During the holidays and in the afternoons in term time, it is possible to organise special tutorials or holiday classes. These can follow the main curriculum or be as diverse and varied as your own imagination. As the school does operate on an absolute bare-bones budget, however, volunteers should plan to provide any materials or equipment required for these courses or extra-curricular activities.

Nursery Schools
We want to recruit overseas volunteers who would be interested in helping to teach at one of the nursery schools and/or who would be able to give the teachers some additional training in teaching young children of nursery school age.

Five nursery schools are running in our area and, until recently, the teachers were unpaid and untrained volunteers from the community. Thanks to the generosity of one of our donors, we are now able to pay the teachers a salary. Also, we have been able to fund a ten-day nursery teacher training course for them all. The nursery schools play a very important role in giving children aged two to five years old a sound grounding in the basics (i.e. numbers, the alphabet, English, etc.) before they start their primary education.

Secondary School(s)
Two of our former volunteers, who were post-doctoral graduates in maths and biochemistry, respectively, taught in the local primary school and also at one of the local secondary schools. In addition, they organised a two-week course in maths, biology, physics and chemistry for secondary school teachers, which they ran with another volunteer. Their efforts were so well received that we are keen for more post-doctoral graduates to volunteer for us and to continue with the work they started. For more information, please read the report they wrote at the end of their placements.

Now that we have raised enough funds to begin building the new secondary school, which will be located at Kapanda close to Mwaya (click here for more information), there will also be an opportunity for our volunteers to assist with teaching there. We are hopeful that the school will be open for Forms 1 and 2 for the beginning of the next academic year which begins in January 2008.