Congested Classrooms- Can any Pupil Succeed?
10 February, 2014KHARTOUM, (Sudanow)—Mistress Norah Osman stands in front of 126 boys and girls in a classroom of a mixed basic school, with minor girls sitting in 10 rows in the front while a large number of other pupils of both sexes are sitting on chairs and couches, resting their exercise-books on laps, either staring at the teacher or writing down what they believe they have heard.
She wondered how her voice will be loud enough to reach through the thronging pupils who she barely discerns their eyes which are looking towards a distant arrival.
“I teach a class of more than a hundred pupils in a basic school where some pupils of the eighth grade do not know how to write their names, correctly,” complained Norah (45) a teacher of an Omdurman school.
She said she has been in this profession since 1993 and since then she has been transferred to a number of schools, noting that during the past 10 years the classrooms have become crammed with pupils, especially in the peripheral areas due to a drift of large numbers of families into the capital city fleeing wars and conflicts in their home regions.
The growing number of the pupils was not matched with an increase in numbers of the teachers who have no alternative other than each one of them exerts maximum mental and physical effort.
“Each day I confront the eyes of those minors with nothing other than my voice and some chalk. In many instances I missed my voice completely and now I have developed a problem in the vocal cords,” said Norah.
It seems that it is not only the teachers who suffer from this situation but the families are also worried about their children as the classrooms are jammed above the standard capacity.
Al-Risalah Al-Hajj (42), a mother of three pupils, said: “The results of my children in the final examination last year were low due to the crowded classrooms. The eldest was moved to the teachers’ private class after the experimental tests of the basic stage. We have to pay 350 pounds in fees for this class, an amount which is equal to the wage of his father who works in a biscuits factory. I am worried that his brothers will confront a similar fate.”
Mistress Norah said an elimination process is currently underway for the jam-packed classrooms by conducting an experimental test for the eighth grade pupils for taking not more than 30 successful pupils in a classroom. The other pupils, or rather those can afford the fees, will be absorbed in the teachers’ union classes, otherwise they will be dropouts.
This is one of 38 similar schools in the Locality where the classrooms contain 126 to 75 pupils, according to educational sources.
Teacher Jamal al-Mina, 37, says the pupils in each classroom of his school, also in Omdurman, are 2.5-fold of the standard number, which is 40 pupils, according to the educational planning. This, Mina went on, implies that each pupil needs one minute for comprehension and the more the number of the pupils increase, the less their comprehension ability will be, requiring further effort on the part of the teacher who must repeat the piece of information he delivers or find an extra-time after the working hours so that the majority of the pupils will be able to absorb the lesson. Repetition of the lesson at this stage inflicts a feeling of boredom on the pupils, said Mina, remarking that the other option before the parents will be the private classes or private schools.
He said one of the consequences of the classroom crowdedness is the hardship to be suffered by the teacher who has to follow the comprehension of each of the 100 pupils in addition to correcting and marking 200 exercise-books every day.
“If this problem I not resolved by providing additional classrooms, i.e., reintroduction of two classrooms for each level, the educational system will be disrupted and the children will drop out of school,” Mina said."
The comprehension problem by the children remains a headache to the parents.
Says G.A., a father of five children from Kordofan: “We have come to Khartoum State in search of quality education and health services. I have been living in this area for 10 years. Two of my children are in the basic school, one of them in eighth grade and will in the coming days sit for an experimental examination. Revising with him the lessons, I find a great difficulty in making him understand the information. I wonder what they are being taught in school. True I did not complete my university studies but I notice a big difference between our learning standard and that of our children as my son understands nothing and does not grasp some words.”
The authorities say they are not assuming an indifferent attitude towards those concerns. Ustaz Imam Mohamed Imam, the education information center, says his Ministry strives for resolving the congestion problem by vertical expansion through building classrooms and expansion in the private education by 2016. He indicated that the Ministry has, during the past year, appointed 1,300 teachers, raising the total number to about 35,000 teachers.
However, educationist Al-Tayeb Ali Abdul Rahman believes that the general education has been expanded in quantity, that is, an increase in the number of schools, sometime in the number of pupils in some regions. Moreover, some schools are opened without conducting an educational planning to determine the need of a region for a new school, considering the numbers of the families and children.
Some schools, Abdul Rahman, remarks, in response to pressures by the people of the region on the education authorities. In some cases the number of pupils in one classroom exceeds the set figure of 40 children, something which is above the seating capacity as well as the capacity of the teacher of following the level of absorption of the individual pupils.
The educationist said the congestion prevents many pupils from taking part in the lesson and from following up correction of the drills in their exercise-books, thus doing away with the close follow-up principle and that of the teacher of the understanding level of the individual pupils. The final result will therefore be poor performance and deteriorating comprehension capacity by the pupils due to the congestion in the classrooms. This situation is dominant in schools of the peripheral marginal and war regions, Abdul Rahman noted.
The educationist believes that, in order to overcome this problem, the administrations may split the pupils of a crowded classroom into two groups, introducing a system of morning and evening shifts. This, beside increasing the number of the qualified teachers, will improve the quality of education and capacity of absorption by the pupils, he said.
Mistress Norah regards the congestion of the classrooms as a standing problem that causes insomnia to both parents and teachers and comprehension disparity among the children of one region in addition to raising the numbers of the dropouts.
“I am afraid that, in this situation, we are promoting illiteracy and filling our streets with dropouts instead of having those streets feed the schools with children,” Norah said.
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