Jenny Hobbs, teacher trainer, The Gambia
Jenny Hobbs a primary teacher from Bray Co. Wicklow, Ireland recently finished her placement in The Gambia.
I can’t believe it was almost two years ago when I arrived in The Gambia with two oversized suitcases packed full of useless things that I felt I couldn’t live without in Africa! For two years now my name has been ‘Fatoumata Tambajang’ and it feels so natural to wake up in the morning, open my door and call “somanda be naadi?” or “how is the morning?” to the women in my compound.
My job as a teacher trainer seemed daunting to me in Ireland when I read it two years ago. I had only been teaching for three years and they wanted me to train others! As I spent my first few months here observing lessons and learning about the system it became clear that my lack of experience was not going to be the worst obstacle. When I read that the teachers were ‘unqualified’, I assumed that I would be teaching methodology classroom management and the type of things we learned to get our teaching qualification.
Resourceful teachers
My role was to work with the teachers and introduce child-centred education, help them to make teaching aids through local materials and to promote education in the communities. There were 12 schools in my cluster and at most each school had two qualified teachers (the head and deputy) leaving mostly unqualified teachers in the classroom.
I started by trying some team-teaching in each school. I focused mostly on English lessons, as they seemed to be the hardest for the teachers. Spending hours in the hot sun teaching with no resources and only a few old books to share around the room gave me a new respect for the teachers. As I spent more time with them I learned that they were struggling in dire conditions.
Working in partnership
It was all small-scale training and at times felt as though I was chipping away at one brick in a huge wall of problems. Then along came BESPOR (Basic Education Support for Poverty Reduction), a project led by Cambridge Education that would help the Department of Education address its problems on a larger scale and make some key changes to improve teaching and learning. VSO decided to become partners in the project and I was given a whole new role.
Every one of my unqualified teachers was offered the chance to obtain the Primary Teacher’s Certificate through a distance-learning course. My role was to help Gambia College to pilot this course in my region. We set up and trained ‘cluster trainers’, Gambians who could offer ongoing professional development to teachers long after VSO is gone.
Sustainable working
Less of my time was spent in the classroom, instead I worked with lecturers and experienced teachers to deliver large-scale training. It was less rewarding for me personally as my contact with the children was gone, but I could see the impact of my interventions more and knew it was better to help create a more sustainable system.
Looking back over my time spent here I wonder if I have gained more than those I have been working with. The teachers have given me so much in return for my few workshops. Teachers have invited me to their homes for naming ceremonies, weddings and religious festivals. The generosity of those who really have so little surprises me still in Gambia, and I hope that it is something that I can learn and bring back to Ireland with me.
It has not always been easy to live so far from home. The life of a volunteer is said to have extreme highs and extreme lows, often in the same day, and it is very true. I cannot deny there were times when I wanted to hop on a plane and get out of here…but it never lasted long. I have had the best two years of my life.
As the aunty in my compound says: “Gambia, a mang easy deh, barri a bete ya tah bache! Gambia, it’s not easy…but it’s very good!”
