School closures, a curse? Or a blessing?
By paul kronenberg and Ashu Egbe Marlyse
” The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see. “
– Alexandra K. Trenfor
The Corona crisis has severely impacted learning institutions across the world. As of 21 April 2020, approximately 1,7 billion learners have been affected. According to UNESCO monitoring, 191 countries have implemented nationwide closures and 5 have implemented local closures, impacting about 98.4 percent of the world’s student population. School closures not only impact students, teachers, and families, but have far-reaching economic and societal consequences. The list is long and includes new ways of digital learning, different use of the internet, but also student debt leading to food insecurity, homelessness, as well as a change in access to childcare, health care, housing, and disability services.
Already disadvantaged children and their families struggle more due to interrupted learning, compromised nutrition, childcare problems, and linked financial costs to families who cannot work.
However, for many children, school closures are a blessing, especially for those who go to school in fear every morning. A person who knows what that is all about, is Ashu Egbe Marlyse from Cameroon. Her educational upbringing carries several dark spots. Here is what she shared: “I worked so hard in school but ended up with nothing to show for in terms of good grades. Hating school became inevitable. No matter how hard I tried to study, it was like water thrown on a duck’s back. I could not keep anything in my brain. This was so, maybe because I came from a broken home where my angry relatives constantly reminded me to shut up and get lost. Maybe, it was because my language at my home was different from the language at school. Maybe it was because my teacher told me that was as malicious as my grades. Maybe it was because nobody cared about what I did in school. Maybe it was like the experience for many children in Buea who do not understand what is being taught in class. I could go on and on with these ‘maybes’. Without knowing the combination of reasons, I was sent home with a substantial amount of red cards. I later realized the red cards meant that I was not allowed to learn certain subjects in high school. This however determined any further future education opportunities and that again decided whether I got a job or not. As a young woman who was only asking for an opportunity to tell the world what I can offer, I witnessed doors being slammed in my face because of my bad grades. This gave me no option but to consider being exploited for a token as the only means to survive in life. My mother died, and from then on there was no mother hen to cover her chick.
Life became a battle. Each day I bore the burden of feeling that I could not accomplish the wish of my mother who said to me “You have to finish school so that you can take care of your brothers and sister”. Then my brother fell ill and because my low grades didn’t permit me to have a good job to pay for hospital bills, he died. May his soul Rest in Peace.
I belonged to a society where responsibilities are handed over to the next generation without adequate preparation. A society where parents place all their bets on the first child or the chosen one, they invest money in sending him/her to school. A system where schools are eager to graduate uncreative minds that cannot think critically and label the ones who fail as stupid and lazy.
There are two choices in my life. Either I use my story to impact others’ lives or I forget about my story and let thousands of Cameroonians follow my trajectory.
kanthari gave me a chance to choose the former. The vision I see is one of transformation in the mindsets of parents, teachers, and students through the creation of an alternative learning space where children are not discriminated based on grades. A system where children discover their talents, their potentials and fulfill under the guidance of inspiring mentors.
So, I founded Wokome, an organization that focuses on alternative learning. For the past one year, we have been engaging parents to actively take part in their Children’s learning processes. This is achieved through home visits. We started this work in the heart of the Anglophone crisis that began in 2016 and ison going. The challenges have been enormous especially in the education sector in Cameroon. Many schools had already closed their doors in the English part of Cameroon long ago.
The conflict has caused thousands of deaths and several hundred thousand being displaced from their homes. As if it is not bad enough, the COVID 19 pandemic has reached Cameroon as well. Cameroon is currently the 5th most affected country in Africa.
This situation forced families in the SW region to think about how to cater for their children. In February 2020, we began groundwork to start a local campaign that was aimed at raising awareness on the importance of discovering every child’s talent. On March 17th 2020, all schools in Cameroon were shut down and we suspended our program.
As schools shut their doors, parents saw this as an opportunity to have their children help them at home making ends meet. We as an organization made sure we educated the eight families we work with on the set COVID 19 rules advised by World Health Organization (WHO). We were very relieved when the parents heed to our advice. This however is just a drop in the ocean. What about the thousands of children still rooming the streets and markets during this perilous times? We plan to spread the same message of keeping children at home and not exposing them to the virus all over the South West Region.
Alongside this sensitization, we also wish to engage parents to continue helping children learn at home. Our strategy is to transform our eight homes into mini learning spaces first by creating small gardens where these parents and children grow any short term food of their choice. This will go a long way to lessen the burden of buying essential food which is now very expensive. This will serve as a learning process for our children and more bonding time with their parents. Also, this will permit children learn freely and break the norms of sitting in a class room.
After the COVID 19 crisis, we would have accomplished our purpose of having our children learn through gardening. And the confinement guarantees that the students are present in their ‘homeschools’ every day :-)”