Justin’s Work 3

Read Justin’s Work 1

Read Justin’s Work 2

At the end of May I attended a meeting in Farafenni that marked a significant landmark in my work here. This Co-ordinating Committee Meeting (CCM) is convened periodically in each of the six Gambian regions in turn, and involves most of the directors and senior officers of DoSBSE (Department of State for Basic and Secondary Education). Also in attendance were others with a stake in Gambian education including representatives of the Gambia Teachers’ Union, the Gambia Teacher Training College, education NGOs and the bodies overseeing Catholic and Methodist sponsored schools.

My directorate SQAD (Standards and Quality Assurance Directorate) were assigned a large portion of the agenda to present our work on establishing a Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) for basic (ie. primary) and secondary education in The Gambia. Developing this framework has been the core focus of my placement here. We have spent many months devising systems for internal and external monitoring of schools, writing instructions and flow-diagrams for staff, and producing manuals of guidance.

This CCM meeting gave us a forum at which we could run ideas past other relevant people within the department. Although we try to work collaboratively, this is notoriously hard to achieve. On numerous occasions we have begun to arrange meetings with staff from our six regional education offices, or to gather together a group of headteachers, only to be defeated by broken vehicles, nationwide fuel shortages, or competition from other events and initiatives run by other directorates or NGOs (and an absence of co-ordination between them). In truth we have also been delayed because we have not been ready, since we have regularly and repeatedly adjusted and changed the framework we have written. But it would certainly have been useful to talk to people at an earlier stage, especially the staff of regional offices who have more direct hands-on involvement with schools than we do at headquarters, and at last this meeting gave us an opportunity to do so.

The meeting

Farafenni is not the sort of place you would choose to hang around for sightseeing and the town lacks wide choice of accommodation, but we were provided rooms in three basic guesthouses. There was a lamp in my room but the electricity is unreliable so I bought a couple of candles at the market. I had an en suite shower but water pressure is low at the end of the dry season, so instead I was given a bucket of water and a jug. We met in a hall at a secondary school, and three good meals per day were provided there too. On some days I returned to the guesthouse during the afternoon to open the door to my room in order to release the heat that built up beneath the steel corrugate roof. Despite this, I lay down on my bed at the end of every evening in a pool of sweat.

My SQAD team presented and explained our QAF to the assembled delegates. In contrast to many meetings I have endured in the past eighteen months, we had planned what we would say, we had discussed the content together, we had prepared PowerPoint slides, and we had included participative activities in which delegates could work together in groups and give us constructive feedback. And we kept more-or-less to time, which is also a rarity. We blew their minds. Some simple planning, a well-managed and disciplined presentation, and delegates were saying it was the best CCM meeting they had ever been to. That didn’t stop some members voicing strong objections to parts of the proposal, but that was fine, since we were seeking feedback, both positive and negative. We ran the show for a day and a half, and collected enough material to keep us working for a number of weeks yet as we adapt and modify, and produce an improved draft.

A brief explanation of the Quality Assurance Framework (QAF)

The purpose of the QAF is to monitor the quality of the teaching and the learning that takes place in schools, and ultimately to raise student achievement. We have proposed a number of quality assurance measures to take place across many levels (the classroom, the school, the village or community, the local cluster of schools, the regional education office, and the national DoSBSE headquarters). Countless aspects of DoSBSE activity would benefit from consideration of quality assurance (such as teacher postings, promotions policy, analysis of exam results, maintenance of buildings, the teaching of reading and curriculum development to name just a few) but for the purpose of this exercise we restricted ourselves to those things that more-or-less directly influence the quality of lessons.

The quality of education in Gambian schools varies considerably, but much of it is poor. That may be a generalisation, but it would not be disputed by the senior staff of DoSBSE including the Permanent Secretary for Education. Education is poor for numerous reasons including low salaries, inadequate teacher training, insufficient teacher accommodation, shortage of materials and resources, hungry children, and a shortage of classrooms. The sad reality is that our Quality Assurance Framework cannot begin to address many of the factors that make the task facing The Gambia’s teachers almost impossible; so many different improvements are required and it is hard to know where to begin.

But the QAF can make a small contribution in the area of internal and external monitoring of schools. First, the framework sets out how headteachers and deputies can monitor teaching and learning in the school, by observing lessons, providing supportive feedback, encouraging the creation and use of schemes of work and lesson plans, promoting the understanding (and completion!) of the syllabus, encouraging good attendance (both students and staff), discussing innovative teaching techniques with staff or the creative use of local resources in lessons, taking action when teachers fall asleep in lessons or are found drinking attaya under a tree rather than teaching. All these are real issues and there are steps that headteachers can take to monitor their school and push for improvements. But most headteachers have had no training for their role and many lack experience. Some headteachers of small rural schools may only have three or four years of teaching experience themselves and in rare cases the head is the only qualified teacher in the school.

And second, the QAF also sets out proposals for external monitoring of schools. For about three years The Gambia has employed Cluster Monitors, experienced ex-teachers or ex-headteachers who can look after a cluster of about ten schools and act as a critical friend to the headteachers. Cluster Monitors benefit from the provision of a motorbike and fuel allowance to enable them to travel between remote village schools, some of which lie many kilometres from the highway down sandy bush-roads. Cluster Monitors write a monthly report on their activities, which is passed to the regional office for consideration. The QAF proposes an important change to this report, to encourage Cluster Monitors to make specific points about schools rather than write in generalities. Then the QAF suggests how the information in the reports can be used for raising standards, if regional staff will read the reports, take a note of points for action, and follow up the action points.

Headteachers have recently received a School Management Manual, with eighty pages of advice on the leadership and management of the school. The manual is good, but is not a magic wand. It does not mean that headteachers will immediately and automatically start following that advice. The manual is a heavy and text-dominated book. It is written in English, which is the third or fourth language of most headteachers. It uses educational jargon and unfamiliar concepts. I have spoken to consultants who seem to think that now the heads have the guidance everything will be OK, but it simply does not work like that.

The School Management Manual has, however, provided a conceptual framework for ongoing work regarding the leadership and management of schools. The manual divides school leadership into six areas (Leadership and Management, Community Participation, Staff Professional Development, Teaching Resources, the School Environment, Managing the Curriculum) and is divided into six chapters with those headings. Therefore we have chosen to base our QAF work on these same six themes. When we provided a workbook for headteachers for annual school self-review, we ensured that it corresponds precisely to the guidance in the School Management Manual. And we have revised the three-year-old Cluster Monitor Manual and brought it into line with these six areas, so that headteachers and cluster monitors can work with common concepts, terminology and aims.

Training

Cluster Monitors received initial training what they were first introduced but have been left rather on-their-own since then, and as a result regional offices use their cluster monitors for a range of activities not really intended, nothing to do with the monitoring of schools and the raising of standards. Cluster Monitors have asked for guidance on how to monitor and support schools; many of them feel they are doing a new job but without adequate training. The revised manual is a helpful step forward, but to make a real impact must be accompanied by a programme of training.

Teachers and headteachers also need training. Trainee teachers study at Gambia College. Other unqualified teachers attend courses during their holidays (other VSO volunteers have been involved in this programme). And the remainder would benefit from ongoing in-service training, but it is in short supply. Through the Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) we are trying to encourage consistent and regular supportive monitoring of teachers by headteachers and senior school staff. Some schools do this well. Many do not. An internal monitoring system is necessary in every school, but it is hard for a headteacher to evaluate a lesson when she only recently qualified herself, has rarely seen or experienced a high quality lesson, and simply does not know what to look for. If we were running an airline, would we launch planes into the sky with untrained pilots and navigations? Why do we do it with schools? Is it any wonder that not many of them complete their journey?

Training is expensive, and DoSBSE has insufficient funds to support an ongoing programme of workshops. Instead training can be run when there is an offer of support from a donor. UNICEF might offer money to train on Child Protection issues. Another organisation might sponsor training for Girls Education, or Science Education, or Community Involvement. The content of training therefore is chosen by people outside The Gambia, according to international priorities or influenced by the current fashions and fads in the arena of development. And so DoSBSE as an organisation have become reactive rather than proactive and it is difficult for us to organise a coherent programme of training for its teachers, headteachers, cluster monitors, or other employees.

School visits

On day three of the meeting we divided into teams and visited ten schools throughout the region. With three colleagues, I was sent to Mbamori Kunda Lower Basic School, not far from Kerewan on the North Bank. These school visits have a dual purpose. The first is to ensure that headquarters and regional staff do set foot in a school from time to time, for a reminder of the realities of teaching and school management in adverse circumstances. The second is to provide the regional director with a snapshop of schools in the region on that particular day. Each team has the chance to present back to the whole committee at the end of the afternoon.

Rural schools in The Gambia are housed in simple buildings, generally built of cement blocks. They may have a concrete floor and a corrugate steel roof. Windows are simply holes in the wall. There will be a blackboard and a lockable cupboard. Desks and chairs are often insufficient or broken. Some classrooms have displays, but it is difficult to fix papers to the cement wall, and posters fall down when the wind blows through the unglazed windows. Innovative teachers hang displays from the beams, or attach strips of cloth to the wall, onto which items for display can be pinned.

Visiting schools can be depressing. Teachers and headteachers face so many difficulties that working for the development of the education system can often feel like fighting against the tide. Teaching is generally didactic and teacher-centred, and often involves learning by rote. There is not much group-work or practical investigation. There are text books available for many subjects, but most pupils cannot read, so their usefulness is restricted. Instead many lessons involve copying from the board, and it seems to me that pupils frequently do not know what they are copying. I have seen pupils writing down simple addition sums from the board, but not realising that these were questions that required the calculation of an answer. Mathematical reasoning is difficult to teach, and in classes of 45 students the amount of individual attention a child will receive is tiny. So a “good boy” or a “good girl” will learn to copy but not think, and those who cannot do it or who question the purpose of all this copying may be told that they are “stubborn” (the current vogue word for a troublesome child) or worse.

But for all that, our visit to Mbamori Kunda School lifted my spirits. There we found an acting headteacher trying hard to get to grips with his new responsibilities. We found some experienced teachers who were conscientious in their work and willing to share their skills with less experienced colleagues. And we found an unqualified teacher who was working hard and keen to learn how to improve. The conduct of students both in and outside the classroom was exemplary, and the site was clean and well maintained.

Whilst we mixed with pupils during the midday break, and teachers sat in their “staff room” under a tree, a family came past on a donkey cart. The daughter had broken her leg during a PE lesson the week before and had been sent to a traditional healer just across the nearby Senegalese border. She sat on a local grass-filled mattress and with her leg strapped, and grimaced with pain each time the cart jolted over a bump.

This building is the kitchen. Meals are provided by the World Food Programme. On this day students were served a paste made with boiled beans, sat outside in groups on the sand around a shared bowl. For some, this will be the best meal they get in the day.

Implementation of policy

Now we have (nearly) written the QAF the next challenge is to implement some of what we have proposed. The new school year starts in September and it would be good to have some parts in place by then. But I have been frustrated to learn over the last eighteen months that all our policy discussions in headquarters may have only a minimal bearing on practice in the field. There is a real prospect that our manuals and policies, however well-researched and well-intentioned they might be, are likely to remain just words on a page.

In part this is related to difficulties in communicating the vision and the intentions agreed at national level (just sending a quick email to all headteachers in not an option) and lack of training is also a factor, as discussed above. We have a serious “lack of capacity” (to use development jargon) in SQAD. And for me, I have been brought in as some kind of expert, but of course I am more experienced in school management than in writing national policy. But more than this, I am learning the importance of participatory solutions that include and empower people, rather than imposed solutions that remain alien to the people who matter, who therefore refuse to work with them. I believe we have used too much of a top-down approach in devising the QAF. Perhaps we should have given more attention to seeking-out what already takes place in the regions, trying to understand what systems and measures that regional officers have devised on their own, and building on these to create the national standard. (We did try, as I wrote above, but I think we could have pushed harder on this).

All is not lost; I think we still have a chance to work collaboratively with regional officers when it comes to implementation. We will probably find that some of what we have suggested will work well, and other parts will be less appropriate and may have to be refined or removed. I hope that the vehicles, the fuel and the resolve are available to make a collaborative approach possible. Without it, I suspect that the QAF may fail at the stage if implementation and it therefore risks making precious little impact on the quality of teaching and the quality of learning in Gambian schools.

Read Justin’s Work 1

Read Justin’s Work 2