Work

I have 3 objectives to meet -
1. Provide training for child frriendly schools
2. Work with the Inspection team here in the province and provide training
3. Support the School directors with management training

So after 3 weeks what have I managed?
1.CFS training and such issues are unheard of here as you can see from this picture.  This was a celebration for World Teacher Day. What a good idea-why does'nt the UK celebrate this?

However, there was nothing friendly about the 3 1/2 hours these pupils stood in the sun and 30+ temps while the speeches were made.
Yesterday I met a school director who told me that in Sept he had 80 grade 1 (aged 6 ) children  start school with 1 teacher and 60% could not speak Khymer. There are 7 hill tribes here!

2 .I have not yet managed to meet with the inspection department as their office in the Ministry where I work is always locked. I have been told that the yearly budget for inspections which began in Sept has already been spent so they cannot do any more! Everyone here is also very busy with the soya bean harvest, another reason to stay at home.

3.There are 3 districts I shall be working in and it has taken me this long to meet the District Education Officers - many schools I visit are shut and the teachers have gone home. They get little pay and never on time and no-one keeps a check on absenteeism.
I want to do a workshop with them to find out what they perceive as the problems - but they will not come without being paid. VSO believe in sharing skills not paying for staff to attend training - if anyone pays it should be the Ministry. So an interesting challenge in the next few months.Although we are trying to get some funding from an Italian NGO which may make my work a little easier.

This is a school I visited at 10am in the morning, about 200 children from grade 1-4 and no teachers in sight. Lots of pigs, dogs, etc, and the children were very happy playing and chatting. Eventually, I found 2 teachers asleep (which people do a lot of here - a combination of the heat and mal-nutrition)  on a row of desks each inside one of the classrooms. When they woke they were not at all embarrassed. Just seemed pleased to see visitors.