End of term reflections

Tuesday was the end of term for the pupils here at St. Anna. For the past week they have been taking exams, and yesterday was the culmination of that work. Parents, guardians, brothers, sisters came to listen to the results being announced, see prizes being presented, give the children a jolly good round of applause and at the end of the ceremony take their children home.

My understanding is that on the whole the performance was good. I will update you with the relative performance compared to other schools in the zone as soon as the analysis has been performed.

At about 14h00, an eerie silence descended upon the school as the children drifted home for the Easter holidays. Although it is conducive to work and writing, the place it is not the same without the children and I will miss them very much during the holidays. But many did promise to come back on one day or another to see me and take me to their homes. Let’s hope so.

As we have arrived at end of term, it would seem timely to put some of my observations and conclusions down on paper. I’d like to share them with you now. Having been here for over 2 months, I feel I have a good view now of what works and what doesn’t (plus who!). The school is characterised by:
1. (For the most part) Dedicated teachers truly committed to the interest of the pupils
2. Strong support network of friends and sponsors
3. Position of strength in the community

However, St. Anna also displays:
1. Obsolete governance and blurred reporting lines (unclear roles & responsibilities)
2. Lack of empowerment of the teachers
3. Little structured communication: internally & externally
4. Practically zero use of technology across the curriculum
5. “Fire fighting”: Little advanced planning or prioritization – Issues are treated as & when they arise
6. Numerous missed or unseized opportunities and synergies for development

I’d like to dwell on the first ones at this time.

On the whole, the school’s teachers are a dedicated group of people with real initiative and a will to see the children progress and achieve. Indeed, one teacher told me the other night that his primary desire is to see these children go on and become great people & future leaders of Kenya. But, for all the committed, hard-working, selfless members of staff, there is conversely a handful whom I consider lazy and uncooperative. They see the centre as a means for serving their own ends; they have lost sight completely (if they ever had it) of the raison d’être of the centre i.e. to serve the children and orphans. If this were my company, they would be out on their ear in a heartbeat.

But greater is the need for structural/organisational change. The governance of the school, which no doubt served them well in the recent past when it was smaller day care centre, is no longer commensurate with that of an ambitious primary school. All power and decision making today resides in the hands of the patrons and an obscure board of governors, several of whom seem to have little justifiable claim to their position apart from accident of postcode; they just happen to live nearby.

The constitution of the school does not legislate for, nor does the structure of the school delegate any operational responsibility to the head teacher or departmental heads. The constitution stipulates that, and I quote: “the board shall deal with all matters pertaining to the day to day running of the centre”. How can the day to day decisions be conferred to a body that meets on average every 3 months?!

Although there are no guarantees, there are several things a school or business can do to strive for survival. One of the keys for such survival is the organizational structure of the organisation. Though this varies from school to school, or business to business, in general an organizational structure needs to be flexible, focused, and streamlined. We are none of these things.

Indeed, it is my view that the structure of the school, which was borne out of the church, is now the root cause of many of the issues and challenges we are facing. Shackled by the prevailing hegemony and their inability to dictate the direction of the school, several teachers (the younger more ambitions teachers certainly) are becoming disillusioned. We are simply not designed today to permit, let alone assist the teachers in realising their ideas and potential (the same is true at the student level where there is no forum for the children to escalate issues that are affecting them or to propose ideas such as clubs they wish to form).

This disillusionment has surfaced in recent weeks with certain teachers talking informally of their frustration at their lack of empowerment. This is a real threat to us as private school as our salaries and benefits are already less attractive than those of the public government run schools, for example we have no pension scheme and we do not provide a travel allowance to and from school. Most teachers do not hide their ambition to work in a government school; we should not give them additional cause to pursue this path.

It was against this backdrop that a clear the air meeting was called last week to provide a chance for all teachers to share their feelings and opinions to the patrons. As is often the case when the time comes to put up or shut up, most chose the latter. But a significant minority did voice their sentiment of being ignored and kept in the dark. The mere matter of holding the meeting appeared to be enough to appease some of the teaching faculty, however for many the feeling persists. I do not wish to dramatise the situation, but I feel a struggle for the future control of the school may be beginning in earnest. The sleeping serpent that has lain coiled under the table in all our discussions (covert & overt) is now more than half awake. Change is on all our minds if not yet on our tongues! (Ok so I stole that one from John J. Chapman).

I am fortunate in my position as a volunteer to be unaffected directly by the status quo. I am also fortunate to be financially independent. This ensures that I rarely seek or ask for the permission to do many of the things I am undertaking. Better to shoot now and ask questions later. More often than not once the initiative is up and running the value is recognised and the project embraced, but to get to that point is in my view unnecessarily complicated.

But change must come or the school will suffer the consequences. There is nothing unique about the situation at St. Anna; on the contrary it is common in most organisations that have reached a certain age and size. We are facing a classic case of a parent’s reluctance to let go of the baby … but let go if they must or strangle it they surely will. If and how we act will dictate whether we slide down the back of the decline curve or whether we are able to propel the school to the next level.

This is the challenge for term 2. Are we ready to face it?