Hi Fellows, I read comments made by Nick, Edwin, & Thomson about the road and I'm personally happy about the creative idea. Anyway, apart from road I just want to raise some concern about the Education system in Koare alone..from last couple of years i haven't visited and even hear any comments about how schools are running... number of teachers/students in the schools or even how school materials/subsidies are delivered. To my prediction, I should say everything is bad to worse as we all know and its becoming pain always within us when even recall or think about it.. Lets all contribute and put any findings and ideas about Koare so that it will keep this fire burning all through until we achieve what we are struggling for, if we cannot our children must!!! Anywhere this is the tip of a Case Study that I made for rural education and its just for us to read and understand whats really happening back in our Rural areas. ITS NOT TO UNDERMINE US BUT TO GIVE US SOME INSIGHT. 1. What are the challenges in Rural Education that we all know off? When outside teachers who do not speak the local language staff rural schools, cultural conflict occurs. Often they feel superior to the local people and refuse to take the time to learn about the culture of their host community. Also when they see road & health services very poor, they often leave or reluctant to come.Teachers posted to rural schools usually apply for transfers and if denied them simply "run away." Even when "at post," they often teach only a portion of their oad, as they find excuses to leave - to collect their pay, to go to the health center, to attend funerals, and so on. Teacher absenteeism is a major problem in rural areas. Schools in rural areas tend to lack amenities. Electricity is either not available or limited. Where education systems rely on interactive radio and television to deliver primary school classes, the isolated schools are left out. Even if they have batteries for radios, the signal either does not reach them or is too weak to be understood. If the community must construct the classrooms and teachers' houses, they are often built out of local or temporary materials, which are perceived as inferior by outsiders. School supplies may never arrive, so teachers fall back on teaching from their kit from their training college days and rely more on ROTE learning (Learning or memorization by repetition, often without an understanding of the reasoning or relationships involved in the material that is learned.) Rural schools tend to harbor untrained or unqualified teachers. School inspectors do not like walking or ride in rough roads for a number of days, so remote schools rarely get visited. Where population densities are small, rural schools tend to need only one or two teachers. This requires either staggered intakes - a class every two or three years. Where rural schools are inferior in facilities and the quality of teachers, the consequence is that students tend not to get selected for the next level of schooling. The examinations - the item banks written by educators who live in cities - contain clear urban biases and favor the progression of urban children. "First-past-the-post" examination systems in rural areas have tended to favor the children of outsiders (such as health professionals, police officers, extension officers, and teachers) over local children. It has been found, when intelligence tests have been administered, that bright rural children do not get admitted into secondary schools, whereas duller urban children do. This is because first-past-the-post selection systems based on formal primary-school-leaving examinations favor children from urban areas where there are better facilities, equipment, and teachers, and more diverse experiences. All of this contributes to the vicious cycle of rural poverty and neglect. The policy debates are never ending. Where successful, the best students who excel on examinations generally leave their communities, never to return. This results in a leadership vacuum in rural areas. Even youth who have been barred from further studies often migrate to gain experience or seek employment in unskilled jobs that are not available at home. 2. You may share some of the Things that you think it may change this trend, and here are some Changing strategies I found in my Case study. I believe that in order to keep young people in rural areas, rural education should be different from urban education. If schooling is more relevant to local conditions and designed to contribute to rural development, the youth may not want to migrate. I also assume, usually fallaciously, that teachers can become community development workers and assist in the transformation of rural areas. The change in name from primary to community schools, which has occurred in many places, reflects this bias. Planners often ignore the aspirations that rural parents have for their children - to become educated, obtain a job in a city, and send remittances home to their aging parents. Ways of adapting primary education to local conditions, while maintaining standards and permitting the quality of learning and supporting upward mobility for the brighter children, are being explored in our country. An example is integrating school gardens with agricultural and nutrition education and school lunch programs. Another is new programs in minority education that address local needs without undermining quality or equality of opportunity. Urban elites may make insistent demands or complaints for "vocationalization," but for other people's children, not their own. Generally there has been a rejection of vocationalization of primary schooling. Rural education must not become "unequal" education. The conviction remains that primary schooling must be a firm foundation for further education, while being terminal for those who are unable to continue to the next level. The challenge of how to achieve both objectives at once continues to exist in the early twenty-first century. The distribution of school supplies and materials remains a critical issue. Urban schools tend to get supplied first and rural and remote schools last. This syndrome is found in the delivery of most government services. It is perhaps unlikely that education department, will provide isolated schools with computers, solar power, and communication dishes before they have provided the new remedy for all difficulties in information technology or e-learning to their urban schools. The gap between the poor and undereducated in rural areas and the urban counterparts is bound to increase. PLEASE ADD MORE IDEAS ON THIS ISSUE.. Thanks to all Konda Indu - Product End of article |
"Koare Rural Development Association" by Tony Kondo, Konda Indu Product
