Football versus school - no contest!

Football fever is in the air.  The children at the home are able to watch the World Cup courtesy of some visitors who paid for a satellite subscription for them.  This week the fever has hit the school.  Instead of going to lessons, most students have spent the school day playing football.  The teachers sit and watch.  When I asked what was going on I was told that there is an inter-schools football competition soon and the children need to practise.  The headteacher even said that football was of equal importance to education.  I was speechless.

A few children still go and sit in their classrooms, so I have been teaching them.  Nice as it is for me to have such small classes, it means I can’t follow the curriculum because I will leave so many children behind. 

This week I introduced very simple dictation and word search puzzles to my much reduced English class.  Today I read them a story, which was a great hit.  The book was one of the children’s books given to me by my hosts in Kampala as a goodbye present.  I am also working with small groups who had similarly low marks in last term’s exams.  This is going very well in terms of increasing their confidence, but the poor children have a very long way to go.  Some can’t read even basic words such as ‘a’, ‘and’ etc.

For maths I have mostly been doing revision exercises, although this morning I introduced Suduku as a bit of light relief.  This afternoon we did a round-the-class times-table test which went very well.  Last term multiplication was a serious weakness, so I was very pleased to see progress in this area.  It is a challenge to find interesting off-curriculum maths for them as I am not a real maths teacher.

It will be catch-up time when the football finishes.  However I have been warned by a Ugandan teacher that next term the obstacle will be drama and singing, which will again take precedence over lessons.  No wonder the exam results here are so poor. 

Football is not the only barrier to education the children face.  Last week many children were sent home for not wearing socks and covered shoes.  One bare-footed mother came to the school the next day to complain that she could not afford shoes either for herself or her children.  She saw me and asked if she could have my sandals.  I was feeling so totally outraged by the headmistress’ mocking attitude to this parent that I took my sandals off and gave them to the woman.

On Tuesday about two thirds of the school were sent home for non-payment of school fees.  Football did not stand in the way of this punishment!  Clearly school fees and smart footwear take precedence over football, with education at the end of the list of priorities.