School Life

It's exam time at Kirima Primary School. Although the children only came back last week, they began three solid days of exams on Monday, as they do at the start, middle and end of each term. And I mean proper exams: done in silence and formally invigilated, with the children well spaced - which means only half the school at a time sitting their papers in the hall and classrooms while the other half wait outside. Amazed, I watch as the children waiting sit chatting quietly, unsupervised, unoccupied, for over two hours, as the others work in the classrooms. There is no running about, horseplay or misbehaviour. Even the little Nursery children busy themselves collecting bundles of twigs quietly and contentedly, their teacher busy with exam supervision.

In the exam rooms all the year groups are today doing Agriculture papers at different levels. Even Nursery 2 (Reception) does exams in the four core subjects! From P(Primary)1 to P6 (Year 1 to Year 6 in National Curriculum terms) the children do papers in six subjects, each lasting from 1 ¼ hours in Year 1 to 2 ½ hours in Year 7. P1 do all their papers apart from English in their own language but from P2 (after only a year of English lessons) they are all done in English. The range and number of questions (fifty-five seems standard) is impressive and the children get on with them in compliant silence. The sound of wood being chopped outside the hall to cook the school lunch punctuates the quiet; and a family of hens peck their way across the floor as the children work, mercifully oblivious to question 43 about 'three reasons for keeping chickens'. ...

The big advantage of the system, the Headmaster explains, is that the children quickly become accustomed to taking exams and they hold no fear for them so that by the time they take their important final Primary Certificate papers they are mostly very confident. The teachers start marking the flimsy banda-duplicated papers immediately the first group has finished; this will be a long, long job. I am given a pile of P6 papers to mark. The children seem to know a huge amount about crop rotation, irrigation, pests and manure but one pupil at least falls down badly on the question "What is castration?" to which he has answered " The removal of an animal's breasts"!

The results are recorded on huge class record sheets where I scan the fascinating range of names : Fortunate, Hosannah, Memory, Precious and Sufficient are amongst the many charming 'missionary' names while, curiously, Chromosome seems to be particularly popular at the moment... Pupils are listed in exam order with no concessions made for relative age within the class, special needs or any other mitigating factors. Parents receive a termly report sheet where their child's results and class position in each subject are shown, the days of absence, a brief comment by the class teacher ("work harder"; "very good") and the start date of the next term. Do they need more? I think back to the lengthy, detailed reports we are used to writing and wonder if they were any more useful than these rather bald but admirably straightforward documents...

The school has its own clinic with two nurses who look after sick children and dispense medicines free of charge to them: this is another of CHIFCOD's many initiatives. Malaria occurs regularly and is regarded as part of the way of life here. Everyone gets it every so often, much in the same way as we in the UK get colds and 'flu, but people take the view that as long as it is treated it doesn't much matter. However, the young are very vulnerable and one in five children's deaths in Africa is from the disease (one in ten worldwide). The children have no nets in their dormitories; how good it would be if they could be provided for every child in the school!

School starts early here and many of the teachers have been at work since 6.00am. At break time a snack of dry bread rolls and posho, a thin maize porridge the consistency of semolina and drunk from a mug, is served for the staff. In other schools they drink weak tea made with copious amounts of well-boiled hot milk; I am still working at acquiring a taste for either, I'm afraid! Uganda is a strongly Christian country and prayers are said often – including grace before every meal and even before eating a snack such as this. Food is precious and no-one takes it for granted.

The school day ends at 5.00pm after a final end-of-day assembly. Older children take it in turns to sweep the classrooms, wash the floors and tidy up outside. Fortunately, today's afternoon rain was not too heavy and the muddy puddles are already drying up. The day pupils leave, joining the stream of children from other schools in the area who are all walking home, cheerfully barefooted, along the stony red road. 'How-are-you-I'm-fine' they call to me. 'Agandi!' I reply – at least I can manage 'hello' in Ruchiga, the local language – and soon, I hope, will manage a lot more.