300

9/5/2017

Visited a couple schools today and naturally spent a lot of time playing with the kids. So awesome. Then spoke to a couple of teachers and began comparing challenges in our jobs. They won hands down: our average Canadian classroom size, one teacher per 30 students. Theirs? One teacher per 300 students. I will never complain about class size again.

3 Comments

Jodi V

9/17/2017 08:40:51 pm

HI Mrs. White! We LOVED seeing this first post! We were shocked to read about the 300:1 ratio! What ages are those 300 kids? Do they have grades similar to those in Canada? Does that one teacher have, say, all junior students? We noticed no uniforms either!

Donna White

9/19/2017 07:38:52 am

When I say a 1 to 300 ratio it means there is one teacher per 300 students for one grade. So it is very common to see one teacher teaching 300 grade 5 students in a class. The classes would be held outside and many of the students would simply help the others who were having troubles.
Yes - the grades are similar to Canada - but the sad thing is most kids don't make it onto the later grades because they have to drop out to work or, in many girl's cases, they have to marry.
Here's an excerpt I took from the Ripple Africa website that provides some interesting information for you:
"Primary school education in Malawi is made up of eight years (referred to as Standard 1 to Standard 8.) Although the official primary school age group in Malawi is categorized as 6-13, it is very common for students of varying ages to attend primary school, as many students have to repeat some primary years. There are three school terms a year for primary schools in Malawi, running generally from September to December, January to April, and April to July. Primary school students in Malawi learn a variety of subjects, and take examinations in English, ChiChewa, maths, science, and social studies. Students must gain a Primary School Leaving Certificate based on their Standard 8 final exam results in order to progress to secondary school.

Primary school education in Malawi is provided by the government, and is free to all students in Malawi. Free primary school education was introduced to Malawi in 1994, and in the first year after the policy change, primary school enrollment in Malawi tripled from 1.6 million students, to over 3 million students. However, while primary school enrollment increased, there was a national shortage of classrooms and qualified teachers to deal with the huge increase in students. Although more students now have access to education in Malawi, the quality of education has decreased. Today, most primary schools in Malawi are under-resourced, under-staffed, and under-funded, creating extremely challenging teaching and learning conditions for teachers and students alike."
Hope this helps!

Jodi V

9/20/2017 10:39:43 am

Wow! Thank you for the immense amount of detailed information Mrs. White! We are shocked that at times, the 300 kids are ALL IN THE SAME GRADE!!!!

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