School

My camera is back and working so I have been able, at the last minute, to take some pictures of a school.  I did consider a school of fish, but they wouldn't stay still long enough, and I don't know enough about schools of art or architecture, so it's back to education.

This is the courtyard of our local school which students attend from the ages for 11 to 16.  It is called the collège.  Before that they attend the école and afterwards they go on to the lycée in the "big" town.  As you can see, it's a very old building and once upon a time it used to be a monastery built in the 12th century for the monks who founded the town.

I doubt whether this tower is in everyday use, though it may be of course, but they do have superb views across the river and beyond.

On the far side of the courtyard with the Romanesque church which the monks built. All public schools are uncompromisingly secular so it's a little ironic that this one is physically and historically so closely associated with the church.

This is my exceedingly late entry for this week's Photo Hunt.  Visit TNchick's site where you can find more people who have joined in.

Tampax and Always - for whose benefit?

Some girls in sub-Saharan Africa have a hard time being educated. Even if they are considered worthy of it, their families may not be able to afford the fees, or the absence of their work at home. When they do manage to attend school they may find there is little or no sanitation, and this causes many to skip school if they are menstruating, or giving up altogether.

The Plan International project I mentioned in an earlier post addresses this problem specifically, with toilet blocks designed in consultation with girls, and getting to the root of the problem. School attendance has improved sufficiently for the project to be rolled out to the rest of the country.

Two days ago Procter & Gamble FemCare brands announced a similar program in Kenya.

Working with HERO, the Protecting Futures program brings together the brands' global resources to help make a positive impact on these young girls by improving access to feminine hygiene products as well as education and health services, said Michelle Vaeth, Protecting Futures Program Director for P&G.

The program will bring puberty education, traveling health educators, nutritious feeding programs, educational support services, a pad distribution program, and significant construction projects to nine schools in the first year.

All very fine until I reached the pad distribution program, and I started to wonder if Tampax or Always are really suited to a life of poverty or near-poverty in rural sub-Saharan Africa. The costs of continuing provision will be high and who will cover those costs when the girls leave school? How will they manage when the facilities provided at the school are no longer available to them?

I would have been happier if they were providing mooncups which are much safer, re-usable and last for years. I can't help feeling that there is little altruism in Procter & Gamble's efforts, and that they are hoping to turn the girls into paying customers. And it starts to sound a tiny bit like the free samples of baby milk powder distributed even where it is ill-advised, just to stimulate a market.

I suppose it's not surprising that the announcement appears in CNN Money.

Girl-friendly toilet facilities in Ghana

Absenteeism from schools has been particularly high amongst adolescent girls because of issues surrounding menstruation, and this often leads to dropping out from school altogether.

After consultation with girls, special toilet facilities have been designed and put into place in ten locations. They had to have good washing facilities, privacy, and be safe and secure. They have been put in place by Plan International, a child-centred development organisation with no religious, political or governmental affiliations, at a cost of $3,500 per block.

Coupled with education and information, these facilities have been successful in improving school attendance, so now the government wants to extend the programme throughout the country.

Irish language

Earlier today I was reading a post on Charlotte’s Web, Adults Speak with Forked Tongue. It was discussing the lies told by adults to children which was interesting in itself, but it was when I got to the part about the headmistress’ end of year report that the memories came flooding back.

The one that first came to mind was my Irish teacher, teacher of the Irish language, that is. Because of all our travels I only intermittently attended school in Ireland, but Irish was a compulsory subject. That was tricky because it wasn’t something I could keep going anywhere else. and as a result I didn’t exactly shine.

I hated it. I was terrified of most of the teachers at that school and the Irish teacher was the most terrifying. I pleaded to be put down into the lower group for my Irish lessons but no one would support me. I was in that class for approximately six months, during which time the teacher never worked out who I was. She would mark our homework and tests and ask us to read out our marks so that she could write them into her register. My name was never called. I would tell her I’d been missed, she wouldn’t find me on the list, and so it went on. After this happened, oh at least twice, I stopped volunteering myself. Who wanted to read out appalling marks for the rest of the class to snigger over?

At the end of term she was sitting at the front filling in report sheets for everyone, when suddenly “Who is A?” I could see no way round it, I put up my hand, quaking. She stared at me as though she had never seen me before, looked at her register, flipped the pages, muttered, asked me to read a page out of our book, and wrote a non-committal report. Something along the lines of “Tries hard”.

Amazingly I can still remember some Irish: a most useful poem

Tá cat sa hata
Tá cat ar an stól
Tá cat ar an mata
Tá cat beag ag ól

Which means: the cat is in the hat, the cat is on the stool, the cat is on the mat, the small cat is drinking milk. Apparently if you read this and similar attention catching rhymes over and over again, you will learn to speak, read and write Irish.

One hopes teaching methods have improved over the years.

Years and years later I was again in Ireland, this time taking my Leaving Certificate, which for some reason I had to take in one year. Again Irish was compulsory. I failed of course, the only exam I’ve ever failed, and after all that I can remember only two more words: an droimneach bacaoch (the blind seagull) and I’m not even too sure of the spelling of bacaoch.

Obviously a bad student.