Our training room ready to be set up

My time teaching physics to three classes in the college is just about over…fortunately. The teaching has been a good experience for me and has certainly given me more of an insight into the quality of training given to trainee teachers. Yesterday I met with the other physics teacher to go through how final grades for this semester are awarded. I expected a norm-referenced system (e.g. the top 10% get ‘A’, the next 10% get ‘B’, etc) but it was worse than I expected. First of all the grade boundaries are set so that the vast majority of the students get ‘C’. Secondly, each teacher makes up their own grade boundaries! i.e. no consistency across subjects or departments. As a result, out of the 160 students I taught, only ONE received an ‘F’ (fail). This despite many of the students being unable to talk in English (they are all going to have to teach in English), and many of them lacking basic skills and abilities in physics. I tried discussing the merits of a criterion-referenced system (students who meet the pre-defined standards for an ‘A’ grade receive an ‘A’ grade, regardless of how many, or how few, there are) but he gave me that standard Ethiopian look of accepted-hopelessness. “This is our system”, “we cannot change it”, etc. So, I have now awarded grades, feeling that I have completely prostituted myself in the process, and have to look at it as acquiring some necessary inside experience as part of trying to improve the training experience for the future. My aim now is to write some advice and recommendations, backed up by evidence, which I can give to the college for discussion. Perhaps college policies will not change, but maybe some individuals might think about how they work.

Today, Sunday, has been fun. We had breakfast with Norma, a new VSO vol who will work in our college in the English Language Improvement Programme (ELIP), at her hotel. She arrived in Gondar on Friday and is waiting to get into her house. She’s fascinating. She has done VSO twice before and, at age 73, was bored sitting around at home in Canada and decided to do VSO again. Just goes to show what you can still do with the right attitude regardless of age!

After breakfast I visited Gemma, with her partner Steve, as she was setting up an optometry clinic. Gemma is a volunteer with Orbis, an eye healthcare charity that does cataract ops, etc in developing countries, and she has been tasked with setting up a degree course in Optometry and with getting this new clinic up and running. Playing with all the new optometry kit was fun and I’ve learned a lot more about eyes!