School Councils

I spoke with Joao in the small office used by the School Council in Namitange Primary School.

“I suppose the main function of the School Council is to act as a link between the school and the community.” he told me.

“There are a few core messages that we are trying to communicate to the people in this community regarding education and the role of the school councils. The most basic message is the importance of education for the development of the child. We are linking this in with the message that every child has a right to a proper education and that parents must be aware of these rights. The third message is that the school cannot succeed without the support of the community.

The School Council has a real input into the management of the school and it is important that the community are aware of this. For instance, if a teacher is consistently absent or underperforming, we complain about the teacher and can get them fired if necessary.

I was asked to represent parents on the School Council as I had acted as Secretary of a local association when World Vision worked here. People knew I had the experience of working in this type of group so they asked me to join the School Council.

We hold regular meetings with students and teachers to help them understand their basic rights in relation to education.

The poorer people are illiterate and place very little value in the education of their children. When we first spoke to them about rights they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Can you imagine it? They thought it was a joke! These people have very little conception of rights or how to achieve them.

However when they see the building materials arrive for the construction of the school, they know that what we’re talking about is real and that Concern mean business. The infrastructure work that Concern is doing gives the rest of the work credibility and I don’t just mean among the poorest people. It is like that all the way up to district level. 

People are now eager to hear more about rights, participatory governance and these types of issues.

Since the School Councils started, the district government are treating us differently. Even a blind man can see that. Before the present system of participatory governance there were a lot of stories about money going into the pockets of district officials and head teachers. Teachers bribing students for money and sex was also a big problem. But the School Council is now openly discussing issues such as these, so it is much more difficult for people to get away with this type of behaviour.

In the past, because of corruption, there was a genuine distrust between the school and the community, now we understand each other so much better.

Regarding the district government I think it’s fair to say that they didn’t even know we existed before the School Council came about. Now we have engagement with them on a regular basis. Their attitude has always been that if you have no knowledge, you will not ask. That is why it has always been in their interests to keep us in the dark.  

You have seen the state of the classroom here in the school. Since Independence in 1975, the government have never considered giving us anything like the school that Concern are building.

Come the end of this programme, I feel that people in general will be much better informed about how things work. We want to pass the training that we’re getting from Concern onto other schools and my hope is that other groups will spring up organically as a result of changing attitudes.

The School Council incorporates a lot more than dealing with the school. One of the main philosophies is to spread the information we receive out to the community at large. Our community is now greater informed about Aids due to the training we received.

We are also coming up with our own initiatives which I feel will be a success. For example, we are getting old people from the community to come in and talk to the kids in order to try and pass on their wisdom and knowledge. This was the process when I was young and we feel it is lacking today.

We feel that today’s teenagers don’t have enough respect for old people or for the local culture. So now we have old guys coming in and passing on local stories, passing on agricultural tips and explaining localisms such as the meaning of the word Namitange. They also talk about how life was in Namitange and Innasunge in general  when they were boys.”

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