Oh dear. Not an easy day. We still have no water and we spent the day at a Higher Diploma workshop at Awassa College. Our unexpected guest last night was one of the VSO HD leaders attending the workshop. The aim was to moderate candidate’s work and discuss issues arising from this year. After the Dean opened the morning session with a speech (mercifully short and appropriately crap), the workshop proceeded as a living example of how not to run a workshop. The two Ethiopian moderators had good intentions, but delivery was poor. I was reminded of a slide shown at an INSET course at home which summarised four stages people pass through as they develop their skills “unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and finally unconscious competence”. These people were somewhere in the transition zone between conscious incompetence and conscious competence.

My already bad mood due to the water issue was made worse by realising during the day that the Higher Diploma Programme (HDP) is trying to solve a big problem in the wrong order. Ethiopian education is crippled by out-of-date teaching, large class sizes (can be 100 or more), low motivation and very poor status. Remember, 1^st cycle primary teachers (Grades 1 to 4) are people who achieved the least at school and leave after Grade 10. 2^nd cycle primary teachers (Grades 5 to 8) come next. People who do well in Grade 10 go on to do Grades 11 &12, and then do a degree and become secondary teachers (Grades 9 to 12). You do not choose to be a teacher here – you are assigned. Nobody wants to be a 1^st cycle teacher and primary teachers are looked down upon compared to secondary. The need then (as I see it) is for a programme on modern teaching methods aimed at teachers rather than teacher trainers. The HDP benefits none of the current teachers in Ethiopia. A Czech NGO called People In Need (PIN) have a set up a programme to do this, based in a separate building at Awassa College. I know the two Czech’s running it and they might be looking for another VSO vol (they already have one VSO vol)…

I’ve spent a lot of today feeling angry, frustrated and a bit despairing at the state of things here. Low motivation and obstructive bureaucracy are everywhere. The badly run workshop, which actually failed in its key aim of agreeing standardised ways of assessing candidates work, and a growing feeling that this programme is fighting the wrong problem have left me feeling cynical and pessimistic. All this and I’m participating in a workshop about a course I officially have no role in due to a combined college & VSO screw-up! The second half of the workshop follows tomorrow. Highlight of the day will undoubtedly be free lunch at Pinna Hotel.