A school still working on its dreams

Project update van 3 mei 2020 door Romana Bremer

The primary school in Bamoi Lol has seen a lot of improvements because of the World Servants projects but is still facing some challenges.

The project in Bamoi Lol was not an ordinary project. Due to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the school block has been built by a local contractor and local people. Unfortunately it was not possible for Dutch participants to take part in this project. The project is, however, regularly visited during the set-up visits. This year the set-up team received good news: in 2019, the school has been officially approved by the government. This means that the school now receives some government funding. Another improvement is that several of the teachers are currently in training for their teachers' certificate.

The teachers explained that the school structure has been a big improvement for the school and the community. The building also helped to attract new teachers to the school. The teachers expressed that their dream is to educate the children in such a way that the children can perform well in secondary school. Last year's results indicate that the school is fullfilling this dream: out of the 12 children that took the final exam, 11 passed. All of these 11 children continued to secondary school. A very good result for the school.

The school also faces some challenges. The attendance rate in some of the classes is quite low and there is also an issue with lack of space. Currently, there are 282 children attending the school. As the school originally consisted of three classrooms, there is not enough space for all the children. The community solved this by partly by converting an office into a classroom. Class 4 now uses this space as a classroom. Class 5 and class 6, however, are being taught outside (class 6 in a make-shift building, class 5 in the open air). Some other issues for the school are a lack of salary for the teachers and the latrines. The latrines were destroyed in the rainy season due to flooding, meaning there are no facilities any more.