Education in Angola: The best lesson of all
After almost three decades of destruction, Angola has drawn fresh battle lines. Education is being firmly endorsed as the engine for restoration and renewal. James Elder visits the centre of the country and finds a new front line: teachers. With books in hand and baby on her back, Dolores Jamba is Angola's future in one svelte, bright orange package. A student, mother, and now teacher, eighteen-year-old Dolores is one of around 4000 newly trained Angolans who will drive Angola's return to education. This week 'Back to School', the biggest education campaign in Angola's history, will introduce almost a quarter of a million children back into the education system. For her part, Dolores will teach 50 of these children. The prolonged civil war that battered Angola until March 2002 left the educational sector in tatters, with one million children excluded from primary education. But amid the gloomy data, education is being unswervingly endorsed as the engine for a brighter future in this sub-Saharan nation. The Back to School Campaign, starting in the central Angolan provinces of Bie and Malanje, aims to embrace and empower Angolan children, encouraging them to participate in affairs, and enhancing their self-esteem. Dolores is now at the end of her first 15-day teachers training session. In June she will participate in another teaching course, and then again in November. It is by no means exhaustive training, but Dolores is confident she can do the job. 'Right now I think it's most important to get the children back into school,' she says, her four-month-old daughter sound asleep on her back. 'I remember what my best teachers did, and I am learning new teaching methodologies all the time.' But how will she fare on her first day when greeted by a classroom of 50 screaming kids? 'Most of the children will be so excited and happy to be at school that they are very easy to teach,' she reassures us. 'But this week I have also learnt what to do when there is one disruptive rebel in the class.' Dolores' home of Kunhinga is about 30 kilometres north of Kuito, the capital of Bie. With its wide streets and friendly faces, Kunhinga is a pleasant village with a market selling fruit, grains and seventh-hand shoes. There are also school books and pens for sale, though in the past when the choice was sustenance or scholarship, families understandably chose food. However, this month Angola's returning school children will all receive a UNICEF education kit – books, pencil, bag and rubber. 'Christmas in February,' beams eight-year-old Luciana, from Kunhinga, who will go to school for the first time ever this week. Kunhinga is an apt place to kick-start education in Angola. Although many of its proudest buildings are riddled with bullet holes, Kunhinga was once at the forefront of Angolan health and education. The first colonial teachers were trained here and just three kilometres away is Hospital do Vouga, or the remains thereof, whose skilled surgeons attracted patients from as far as South Africa. However, battles raged here throughout 1993 and the hospital and schools were crippled. Nonetheless, given the chance of peace, Angolans appear to have an appetite for education. At the end of the 27-year long war, there were just 21 schools left standing in Kunhinga Municipality. This past year the citizens have built 41 new schools with local materials and UNICEF assistance. The benefits of this community action are two-fold: firstly, it gets the schools built, but equally important is that it assists in altering parents' perception equating education with expenditure. "As a result of this large scale public involvement, schools have taken pride of place in these communities," says Cipreano Acolelo, head of Kunhinga's education section, from his office stacked high with geography and maths textbooks. "This, together with the fact that as part of Back to School, UNICEF is covering full costs of books and materials, means that parents are taking a different view of education." Domingos Caiumbuca is another of the 39 teachers being trained in Kunhinga. Tall, confident and jocular, he is destined to be the hero of his class. 'I feel this training is very important because this is the start of a new era in education in Angola,' he tells me. 'I want to teach to help develop a new generation of Angolans. For instance, just this morning we were learning why it is important to integrate the best students with the more difficult. I love this knowledge.' Fifty kilometres, and two bumpy hours east of Kuito, 105 more teachers are busy with final preparations before Back to School commences. In a mud-brick building, they are perched on blocks of wood and clay. But their simple surroundings do not deter them. Instead they listen and learn as though their training seminar were at the Intercontinental Hotel. This is the spirit of a new generation of Angolan teachers: yes, they would like more materials, but right now the only absentees they are concerned with from their classroom are children. 'Of course we need more pencils, more books and more schools so that we can reach out to all Angolan children,' says Dolores. And she is right: UNICEF is appealing for more funds to implement Back to School across Angola. 'But at this time we must use what we have – and what we have is a chance to give our children a new start.'
|
