PROJECT: School's Out

A short time ago we wrote about a break we had from teaching during Ghanian independence day. This week there aren't any holidays, however the country's school yards are empty as they were then.

A general country-wide teachers strike has been in effect since the beginning of the week. 250,000 teachers took this radical course of action in response to proposed changes to their pay structure (the new structure is called the Single Spine Structure). This new pay structure is part of a series of reforms aimed at slowing the growth of public sector wages, it was undertaken as part of an IMF aid package which required it. In July of 2009 Ghana recieved a 600 million dollar loan from the IMF to counter the effects of the global economic crisis.

Ghana is an otherwise stable country with 21 years of democratic rule. Its two main parties trade power regularly -- the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP). In the last couple years the protests against low wages -- teachers wages are the lowest in the public sector -- have turned into strikes a number of times. These strikes and protests are sometimes accompanied by police brutality.

The efforts of the ruling party to postpone the strike didn't help, despite the fact that the strike is being held at the very beginning of the testing period for the West African Senior Schools Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). One member of the ruling party inadvertently goaded the strikers on by saying this on national radio: "If you aren't satisfied with your wages, no one is forcing you to come to work."

No one knows how long the strike will last. We found out about it on monday when, full of elan at the beginning of a new week, we stepped into the schoolyard at Azani, which was empty. The doors of the classrooms were closed, a few sheep walked through the yard, but a few girls were in the outdoor classrooms. At first we were a little bit sad. But as soon as one of our students saw us they hurried to get the rest of the group. Without their school uniforms the children quickly came back to the outdoor classroom and filled its benches. Although we started a half an hour late both we and the students were happy to have this hour together. As we mentioned in an earlier post, we started writing today. After the first two classes we realized that having a blackboard wasn't enough. So that morning Tomaz and Emmanuel had gone to the market in Agona, where in addition to potatoes, which can't be found in Busua :), they bought 2 packets of notebooks. About a third of the notebooks were decorated with figures from the hit game Angry Birds, a third had soccer players on them, and the last third were Hanna Montana themed (a children's singer). Interestingly the most desireable notebooks proved to be the ones with Angry Birds on them (not soccer players as we thought).

The purchase proved to be worth it -- the students were very happy to receive them and they took the excercises we did very seriously, the two of us happily learned that writing didn't present such a problem for the students as we thought it would.

Ni dolgo tega kar sva omenjala kratke počitnice ob dnevu neodvisnosti. Ta teden sicer ni prazničnega vzdušja, a šolska dvorišča so, kot takrat, prazna.

Od začetka tedna poteka po državi splošna učiteljska stavka. 250.000 učiteljev je k tej radikalni potezi “vzpodbudila” predvsem nova  plačna shema, imanovana Single Spine Structure. S plačnimi reformami ganska vlada sledi direktivam Mednarodnega denarni sklada (IMF), ki zaradi domnevne  prevelike rasti plač v javnem sektorju, zahteva njihove reze. Julija 2009 je Gana namreč od omenjene institucije prejela 600 milijonov dolarjev posojila za omilitev posledic globalne krize.

Gana je sicer stabilna država s enaindvajsetletno demokracijo. Na oblasti se menjavata dve najmočnejši stranki -  National Democratic Congress (NDC) in New Patriotic Party (NPP). Zadnjih nekaj let se je kot protest proti prenizkim plačam – njihove plače so namreč najnižje v javnem sektorju -  zvrstilo že kar nekaj učiteljskih stavk, ki jih je občasno  spremljala tudi prekomerna raba sile policistov.

Vladni apeli učiteljem tudi tokrat niso pomagali - kljub temu, da stavka sovpada z pričetkom izpitov, imenovanih West African Senior Schools Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). Nepopustljivost učiteljskega sindikata je moč iskati tudi v agresivni vladni retoriki. Odmeven je primer vladnega uslužbenca , ki jih je na nacionalnem radiu okrcal takole: “Če niste zadovoljni s svojimi plačami vas nihče ne sili da delate.”

Kako dolgo bo stavka trajala, še ni znano. Zanjo sva izvedela šele v ponedeljek, ko sva polna elana ob začetku novega tedna, stopila na azanijsko šolsko dvorišče. Ki pa je bilo tokrat prazno. Vrata učilnic so bila zaprta, po dvorišču je postopalo le nekaj ovc, v zunanji učilnici pa posedalo nekaj deklic. Prvi trenutek sva obstala, kar malce užaloščena. A takoj ko so naju učenke zagledale, so odhitele še po preostali del skupine. Tokrat brez šolskih uniform so učenci prihiteli, ter napolnili šolske klopi. Četudi se je začetek našega srečanja zamaknil za pol ure, smo bili vsi – tako učenci kot midva-  tokratnega srečanja veseli na poseben način. Kot sva zapisala že v eni od prejšnjih objav, smo začeli s pisanjem. Po dveh uvodnih srečanjih sva  spoznala, da je zgolj tabla premalo. Tako se je Tomaž pred poukom z Emanuelom podal na agonsko tržnico, kjer je - poleg krompirja, ki ga v Busui ni moč dobiti :) - kupil tudi dva paketa zvezkov. Približno tretjina ima na naslovnici like iz priljubljene igrice Angry Birds, tretjina nogometaše, ter zadnja tretjina Hanno Montano (otroško pevko). Presenetljivo, za najbolj iskane so se izkazali tisti z Angry Birds (in ne z nogometasi:)!

Nakup se je že takoj izkazal za dobro naložbo – otroci so se jih zelo razveselili, ter se pisnih nalog lotili z vso resnostjo, midva pa sva zadovoljno ugotavljala, da predstavlja pisanje za učence manjšo težavo kot sva predvidevala.

P.S. 21. marec je od leta 1999 posvečen "vezani besedi" - poeziji.  Danes berem Hafisa, sufijskega mojstra, mistika, perzijskega pesnika iz 14. stoletja, ki je del mojega "prenosnega inventarja":). Klanjali so se mu Puškin, Goethe, Lorca, pa tudi številni filozofi:

"Bog,

 preoblečen

v množico stvari, se je igral

kdo lovi,

te poljubil in rekel:

"Ti si ta-

resno mislim, ti si zares TA!"

V bistvu ni pomembno

kaj verjameš ali čutiš,

kajti nekaj čudovitega,

grandiozno čudovitega

se bo nekega 

lepega dne

zgodilo."

 Sonja