School in Crisis

We want to tell you about the school.

This is the whole school, having just sung the national anthem, before going into class.

As many of you know the school that is attached to the church where we are worshipping here in Choma (Pilgrim Wesleyan Church, Mochipapa Road) grew from very small beginnings in 2007, adding a grade each year.  There are now 7 grades (equivalent to a British primary school) and just over 300 children, and in 2014 the first batch of grade 7 children went up to grade 8 in other schools.  Of 30 grade 7 children, 28 passed and were able to go up to grade 8.  This is an excellent achievement.

However, the school is fully funded by the fees (which are necessarily low, most of the children coming from very vulnerable families), the church, and donations (mostly from overseas).  For the past 18 months or so, the process of applying to the government for the school to be “grant aided”, so that the government funds half of the cost of the school, has been going on.  This has been a succession of applications, meetings and set-backs, not helped by the recent change of government.  Each time government officials have been met, new requirements and strategies are put forward.  As part of this process we are now compiling a profile of the school, teachers, pupils, buildings etc.

Grade 7

Pre-grades

 

Unfortunately, in the mean-time, while the church and school wait for the process to be completed, for the church’s governing body to be more proactive, for the wheels of government to turn, the funding situation is such that the teachers have now not been paid for almost 3 months.

If any of you want to help with the immediate problem of paying the teachers, please contact the office at St Michael’s in Aberystwyth.  Pauline will be able to coordinate any donations.

Thank you

As well as the profile mentioned above, our involvement in the school so far has been to teach 2 grade 7 pupils to read.  These 2 are young men in their early 20s whose education was interrupted for various reasons and are now making a huge effort to continue.  It is a credit to them that they are willing to join a primary school and sit with children of 9 and 10 in order to learn, and to the school, who are willing to accommodate them.

This afternoon we will be helping to mend some benches, with the grade 7 pupils, for the baby class.