School Trip

I went out to a rural primary school this last week to pre- test some of our public health material. 8 of us piled into my trusty Landy and headed out into the bush. The school we visited had no roof (it blew off in the rains) and the children sit on the floor. It is absolutely crazy to think that 10 years ago Zimbabwe's school system was the most respected in Africa. Today it is completely in ruins; a whole generation of children have not been educated. It is quite a frightening reality.

As part of one of the projects I run I have written a book on life skills for children from 5-18. We wanted to test out the workbooks for children aged 4-8 in a rural area. The children were sweet but is was so strange. They have not been in school so they have no concept of learning. They have not been conditioned to engage with a teacher. They just sit in silence, looking nervous- it is quite like talking to a brick wall. They don't even really know how to sing songs.

Lots of the questions for this age group in the workbook ask them to draw pictures and colour in. The children we gave the books to, did not know what to do with the pencils. They couldn't understand the idea of colouring in and just looked confused. A few children drew one straight line across the page. Isn't that crazy that children have not learnt to colour in- aged 8? They also really struggled to recognise pictures on a page- they don't have books so they have not every connected a picture to the real life object. I was left pretty stunned and very concerned- the task ahead here is enormous.