8100 Hours of Schooling Versus 30 Hours Learning Camp

By Mohamed Roba, Project Officer Education, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR)Pupils during TaRL session in Bungoma, Kenya

In African societies, elders used parables or proverbs to explain concepts and only the wise would comprehend. I told my grandmother some children in grade three can read better than those in grade six and her reply was ‘yes, it is possible.’ They have seen adults behaving like children, some who will catch up and others won’t. Similarly, they have seen children behaving like adults. It all depends on whose hands the child was.

Imagine being told that your child in grade five can’t read a grade two-story. Then, you start doing a statistical analysis of the time he spent in school. Five years translated into fifteen school terms. Then, 12 weeks per term in school; equal to 180 weeks in total. Remember, he goes to school from 8 a.m. and comes back at 5 p.m., almost 9 hours a day or rather 45 hours per week. To be precise, your child has spent 8100 hours in school, exclusive of the preschool years. Whether he was schooling or learning, is the subject of discussion.

Your child, being in grade five and unable to read, is then subjected to a remediation, a learning camp that last only for 30 hours and miraculously the illiteracy menace gradually disappears. This is the splendor of Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach. We have seen children catching up in a very short time only if teachers deviate from their normal classrooms that look like lecture halls to a social laboratory that encourages each child to have a learning material in his/her hand. A fun-filled team building engagement for children who are full of adrenaline and ready to learn. Children who will never believe unless they see things by their own eyes and do by their own hands.

Teachers employed to finish the syllabus will leave so many children lagging behind because they recognize and value their bosses as accounting officers and not the child. On the contrary, teachers who love children and have accepted in their hearts that they have been employed by children and not the government will ultimately realize that the only sustainable thing in this world is that of bringing up not just a good child but a useful one.

This was my three-day experience during the recent practical literacy workshop in Bungoma organized by ziziAfrique attended by Learner Centered Teaching (LCT) team and 40 passionate teacher assistants.

Thank you to the organizers. Facilitators acted as teachers and participants acted as learners throughout the sessions, making the workshop learning camps a reality.

This blog was originally posted on the RELI AFRICA website.