the classroom...........

Today had the privilege of visiting one of our new primary schools. It really is in quite a rural location and before this school came into existence children were walking about 7-8 kilometres to the nearest primary school every day. There are only a couple of classroom blocks, and four of the classes are outside like this one under the tree.

I kept the foreground in the picture to show you that they climb over the garden to get to their class! Its really quite pathetic. Other classes don't even have a tree to shelter the children from the hot sun. On rainy days they all cram into two classrooms because its the only building that rain cannot get into!!

Education in Malawi is really quite pathetic and I have seen it go down in the years that I have been here. The ministry of education last week announced that from next academic year all children will learn in English from standard one in primary school - and yet most of these children do not understand any English...........so I reckon education is not going to get any better soon!!