Thursday, July 2, 2009
Asilong Primary School at the Pokot Tribe
The school in Pokot is very different from the schools you find in America. First of all, to build a school they use pieces of wood for the frame, then they put the mixture of of cow dung, water, and dirt over the wood. The desks are long wooden benches with a slab of wood for the tables. There are little chalkboards in each of the rooms. They have levels 1-6, along with books for each grade. The books however, are very outdated and most of the English books have mistakes in them. Some of the children actually live near the school in these little houses (like a dormitory.) They sleep on the floor without pillows and blankets. When they wake up they eat porridge and head out to school around 8am and get out at 3pm. There are 8 teachers total, including the head master. They are very estatic to learn about the XO's, most of them have never seen a computer before. Each teacher has at least 2 to 3 subjects that they teach. They have science, social studies, mathematics, swahili, english, and religion. Most of the teachers do not have teaching certificates- just a diploma from high school. The kids are very happy to see us. They always stare and say "Karam" which means good in Pokot or they say "how are you, how are you."
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The situation in Asilong is completely different in all aspects in less than a year after deployment of the XO laptops. Many government officials and other dignitaries have visited the initiative. Last week the SNV Country director together with the Head Teacher Asilong Mr. Krop presented success stories at the Regional Education Conference on eLearning in Nairobi. Everybody now wants to go to Pokot and see the success of the initiative.
ReplyDeleteKificom will be camping at Asilong in the next few days to support the teachers in exploring all the functions of the XO laptops for the benefit of the children there, Thanks to SNV who are supporting this. The pupil population has almost doubled due to the new technologies in teaching. Two teachers from the school will be attending the eLearning Africa Conference next month to share some of the success stories of the initiative.
Join us in changing the plight of these children living in ARID Pastoral areas. Otherwise, this will be one of the most successful initiatives in Africa.
Cheers to all those who have supported. Sophia and your team, you planted a seed that is now bearing fruits. Keep up the good work.
Mathew Kituu- Kificom