For Life

As I walked in my compound this evening from school, I greeted my neighbors on the veranda sorting peanuts.  We caught up on each other’s days, and I reminded my Ugandan mother, a P-2 teacher, about the upcoming school supervision, just so she could be prepared.  Her response: “Supervision?  Fine, let them come.  But what are they going to do if they don’t like us?  We’re qualified teachers!  Where will they take us?”

In Uganda, you can “choose” to enter the Primary Teacher’s College after passing your S-4 exams.  (I say “choose” because for many people it is not a choice.  The students that go to the teacher’s college are the ones that didn’t do well enough to go on in their studies or don’t have enough money to pay for higher education.)  You are trained to teach all subjects and all classes.  Once you have passed your teaching exams and student teaching, you can apply for government positions at primary schools.  After two years of good reports, you will become a qualified teacher.  A qualified teacher means salary for life.

One of the biggest struggles I face working in the primary schools is one that I will never be able to change.  It is essentially impossible to fire a teacher in Uganda, for anything.  If children aren’t performing well on exams, the teacher is not responsible.  If the teacher doesn’t make lesson plans, he gets a warning.  If the teacher doesn’t come to school, the other teachers complain about having to do his work.  If a teacher badly hurts a pupil from over-caning, he has to pay off the parents who are threatening to go to the police.  If the teacher defiles a pupil, he still keeps teaching.  The absolute worst that can happen to a teacher is a transfer to another school, where he becomes a problem for another head teacher and staff.  I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not.  I know teachers that haven’t been at school for weeks at a time, teachers that have had sex with underaged pupils and teachers that come to school drunk.  Regardless of their offense, they will almost always stay on the payroll and pension plan.

How do you motivate someone that has nothing to lose and you have nothing to give?  Our schools have little funds to buy prep books, pens and chalk, let alone try to reward teachers for their efforts.  Head teachers are powerless in terms of enforcing good teaching practices.  Supervisors, like the District Inspector or myself, make their rounds to the schools and try to make suggestions for improvement.  But when it comes down to it, the teachers aren’t paid enough and their performance does not determine whether they get that little salary. Why would you try to be better if, in the end, it doesn’t affect you?

Sadly, I understand the Ugandan education system better than my own, but I do know that American schools we have this concept of tenure.  I know that our unions fight for it because it encourages teachers to try different things without worrying about their position; however, it seems strange that we don’t constantly demand for effective teaching, regardless of someone’s experience. Why don’t we see schools as the businesses they are?  If the employees aren’t performing, they should get the boot.  Isn’t that the American way?  Teachers have one of the most important jobs- preparing the future generation.  Children spend more time with their teachers than their families.  Teachers shape not only their reading skills, but also our children’s every day behavior, morals, political views and aspirations.  It always amazed me that Americans don’t consider teaching a very worthy profession.  We recruit from the bottom 30% of college graduates.  American teachers are paid poorly, and yet our future relies on their work.  Of course, I suggest that we increase their salaries and change our attitudes towards teaching.  In certain countries, such as Finland and Japan, teaching is one of the most desirable and honorable positions, only filled by the most qualified professionals.

Regardless of the country, children are the victims of complacent, lazy and careless teachers.  Although this may be an extreme case, I’d like to share it with you.  From beneath the shade of a mango tree today, I watched a teacher cane children for poorly performing on his math quiz.  As I strode up to this class, I doubted whether immediate action was the most professional option, but I didn’t care.  I couldn’t stand hearing the thwack on the backs of innocent children.  I called the teacher outside, and asked him if he was really caning children for bad performance.  Upon confirmation, I explained to him that poor performance was not the child’s fault, but his fault.  I further explained that it should not be the children to be caned, but him.  A child can only perform as well as he was taught.  Ends up, he’s not teaching very well.  But nothing will happen to him.  He will continue teaching poorly, blaming his pupils for his failure and collecting his salary every month.  As for me, I will continue to be baffled by our acceptance of this broken system and stumped by questions about where to take qualified, but poorly performing teachers.