12th February 2013
Today we drove up to Tanga to visit the Macechu Secondary school which has been twinned with Bishop's Castle Community College. We had been given some pens and other odds and ends to give to the Headmaster, I don't know if he was impressed as the Koreans have given him 20 PC's!
The school was very basic with a number of large classrooms in concrete buildings around a quadrangle. There was not a scrap of litter anywhere, they don't have cleaning staff, the children do the cleaning in the first half hour of the day. The classes had about 40 students, all the lessons are done in English. Until they reach secondary school the children only learn in Swahili so it must be quite a shock.
All the lessons seem to be talk and chalk, not many text books in evidence. Every teacher carried a stick and I am fairly sure I saw one being used as we passed a classroom.
We were taken into three classrooms and introduced ourselves to the children, most of the girls seemed to be Muslims (they wear headscarf's). It was an interesting visit, goodness knows what our pupils will make of it if they come here on an exchange however just talking to the students would help them with their English.
The picture shows the Head Girl and Boy.