This school year should be an interesting one.
I was especially looking forward to this school year because I thought that after 2 years of teaching the same classes I've finally gotten the hang of things. However...this school year will be nothing like last year. For many, many reasons.
Overall, results for the national exams, especially the exam to pass from elementary school (6th grade) to middle school and the BREVET to pass from middle to high school were suspiciously high. This was a nationwide phenomenon and there haven't been any clear expectations for why the passing rate was so high. It's not that I'm against kids passing the national exam. It's just that I know the kids shouldn't have passed and now 7th grade teachers will be stuck with students that don't know how to read and 11th grade teachers (me) will be stuck with students that can't do basic math.
The practice BREVET was administed at my school and was a very legitimate test with little cheating, consistent grading, and correct calculation of grades. 13/400 students passed the practice test. In general, around 60 or so kids pass the BREVET each year. So this year, I estimated that somewhere between 13 and 60 kids would pass the BREVET. However, after coming back from vacation in the states I was informed that 220 kids passed the BREVET...?!?!?! The elementary schools that feed into our middle school usually pass around 400 students. This year 800 students passed. Schools around Guinea had similarly unbelievable results. My theory is that because of the upcoming elections, the tests were graded very loosely. With a lot of students passing, people will be more happy with the governemnt and less likely to strike or cause other problems that would disturb election plans.
You can imagine what will happen to my school this year. Instead of 4 classes of 7th grade, there will now be 7 classes, each with 120+ students. However, our school doesn't have enough classrooms for all these students so my principal has been left scrambling to figure out how to accomodate everyone. The gov't education officials suggested eliminating 12th grade to make room. His idea was that 12th grade is the smallest class at our school and those kids would just have to leave and go study somewhere else. Obviously my principal and I were very upset about this. We're now looking at a way to rotate classes around during the days to fit everyone in. It will be a logistical nightmare. Not to mention that we need atleast 200 more desks - which some local carpenters are frantically trying to build before the year starts.
For my own classes, I will now have 100+ students in each 11th grade class instead of 30. I've been lucky enough these past 2 years to have such small classes. I have no idea how to manage 100 students in one room. It will be chaos. 12th grade is the class I've always taught most, and if the gov't officials have their way, it might be gone. That would mean that I would be starting from scratch lesson planning and learning the curriculum for another grade. On top of that, the gov't decided that English needs to be taugt in middle school now, so my principal and other teachers are asking if I'd want to do it. I feel vehemently opposed. Middle school students can barely read and write French and our middle school is lacking french, math, physics, and biology teachers. If they wanted me to teach any of those subjects I would be more than happy to - because to me they are much more important than English. I would gladly take on more hours if I felt that I was doing something really important. I sometimes wish I was a middle school math teacher because I think it is one of the most important subjets, along with French.
Speaking of missing teachers, when my principal brought up the issue with gov't officials they asked how many teachers we had. Around 30, my principal said. The gov't officials said that was actually too many and that they would be taking away some of our teachers to give to other schools that were missing teachers.
There is so much confusion about this school year - and to add to it, know one even knows when the school year will start. It always starts after the independance day (Oct 2). This year, though, the gov't said that the vacation was too long (ironically because the gov't cut last school year short because they thought they were having elections in June) and now schools are supposed to be ready to go on Sept 16th. My principal has told all the teachers to come to school ready on the 16th...however there is not a single student that has been informed of this date. Apparently, we're just supposed to show up and be ready to teach should a gov't inspector come, but we all know that there will be no students until October. The legislative elections are scheduled for Sept 24th and if there are any disputes or issues with the election, that will further delay students from coming to school. Long story short, I'll be at my school ready to teach on Monday, but I don't expect any students for at least another month. Ahhhh Guinea.
Last but not least, of all the crazy things happenning...my princial is worried he might lose his job. He is a member of the opposition party, and the whole 2 years I've been here he's been telling me that they might kick him out of his position, simply because he is not with the ruling party. Since the elections are coming up it's an especially tense time and my principal is worried. He works 7 days a week, hasn't had a break or vacation in many years, is against corruption, runs a very large and high-acheieving school...and the gov't wants to kick him out anyway. My principal is OK with this, he says politics is not his problem and if they want to kick him out, so be it. I'm hopeful that they won't do this though, because I think people know the school would fall apart very quickly without him there, and there's hardly any other Guinean that would work those hours to keep the school running smoothly.
It's a game of wait-and-see. I'm just hanging out in my village waiting to see what happens. I'll be ready to teach on Monday or 4 Mondays from now. I'm ready for 100+ students in a class with 30 desks. Bring it on Guinea!
