This week is something of a milestone. It marks the completion of my ninth month in Malawi and therefore I have been here for half the period I agreed to stay. Despite a few miserable moments the time has passed very quickly. I suppose it always does when one has plenty to do! I have enjoyed so many things. It has been a privilege to get to know my 70- odd students. They come from many different walks of life and range in age from about 18 to I guess early 40s. Although we started with 50/50 men and women there are now significantly more women than men, but the men are an energetic and vociferous minority! I guess most of those who remain are really committed to the idea of working with children. A few students are local to Chilomoni but many travel by minibus from Blantyre, and quite a few use one or two buses in order to catch the local bus. It must have been so hard for some of them to raise the money for the fares whilst working on the course. Some have part time jobs. A few have more full time jobs and juggle their hours to attend as many sessions of the course as possible. I have tried to be as accommodating as I can to this group, but there are one or two who have attended infrequently enough to cause me some concern about the likelihood of them passing the exam. Many students have their fares paid by more fortunate parents, brothers and sisters and cousins who are in full time work. In Africa it is much more common for families to help each other out in this way than it is at home. Indeed it is an expectation, and I am sure it is sometimes a burden for those in work to be expected to hand over their hard-earned cash to support family members.
The topic this week has been Management and Supervision. We began with a consideration of what it might be that a Children's Centre Manager does all day! They came up with a lot of good ideas. Then we looked at Policies and Procedures, what is the difference between the two? What sort of issues should be covered by each? How the number should be kept to a reasonable level as there is no earthly reason to have policies that the staff are not familiar with. We then went on to a consideration of supervision and appraisal. I want them to feel positive about a supervision system and not view it as a chance for line managers to tell them off about what has gone wrong but to work together with them on their own career development as well as to constantly refine and improve the services that the children and families are receiving. I also put together a presentation on applying for a job, discussing CVs and covering letters, and gave them the benefit of my advice on preparing for interviews. We gave over the best part of the second day for each class to interview practice. On Tuesday Vince, Peter and I took one third of the class each. We asked the same 5 questions over about ten minutes, and then spent a few minutes giving each student feedback on how the interview had gone and the impression they had given. On Friday Peter was busy elsewhere, but Lindy stepped into the breach and we managed to give everyone a chance to practice. My interviews were immensely varied. I was relieved to find that most acquitted themselves fairly creditably, a few were impressive. Unfortunately there were three about whom I have grave doubts as to their ability to work with children in the way in which I think (hope) I have trained them to do! I guess we shall see!
So, we have completed the input for the Intermediate part of the course. Those who get through will get jobs in the Children's Centre and embark upon the third, practical stage of their training. I do hope that the Children's Centre will open on time, but I fear there may be delays. This is not an easy time for Malawi, there have been shortages of imported commodities such as diesel and cement in recent weeks and this may take its toll on the schedule. The one compensation that I can think of is that it may give me and David just a little more time to devise the NVQ-style assessment programme for the third and final section of the diploma. Any delay will be tough on the students who have already invested seven months of their time in the training. However it has been a free training course of good quality which is most unusual in Malawi.
The coming week will be made up of revision classes. I have told both groups that I shall be in the classroom on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of next week from 8.30am to 4.30pm to answer their questions, go through presentations, give them practice exam questions, loan books and generally support their revision in any way I can. David and I drafted most of the exams before he left and 80 copies of the papers have joined the piles of documents that litter my living room floor. When Ged was here he said that you could tell I was a teacher from standing in the doorway! This is just a polite way of saying how untidy I am! Currently I have piles of students' reflective diaries with entries about the Open Day and the sessions on working with children with SEN. Most of these are now marked and will be returned to the students tomorrow; there is a pile for each class of an assignment which asked them to consider which are the most important things they have learned on the Intermediate part of the course, to think about their own professional development and to say what subjects they would like to study next. I have only just begun to look at these and have marked perhaps 8 of 70 but already they are proving to be full of useful information, suggesting who might be interested in which of the different roles that will be needed in the Children's Centre. Together with things students said in their interviews and my own observations I am beginning to pick up who might like to work with babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers, who has an interest in outreach, one or two who would like to work towards being trainers themselves, and a couple with an interest in health education. It's a good spread of interests. I hope it all works out well! I've even identified one or two who have management potential. As far as marking is concerned, hurry back David, I miss you! Actually I miss him in all sorts of ways!
Next week will be a turning point in other ways. Two people are arriving to act as Centre Managers for a couple of months to get the place ready to Open In September. There is so much to do, sort out admissions, recruit children and families, write policies and procedures, resource the whole centre, sort out the staff structure, interview all the students and allocate them to appropriate jobs. There is certainly plenty to keep Sue and Brian busy! David and I will no longer be the only volunteers in the child care team. Indeed this is the beginning of big expansion. We are expecting four room leaders, all women, to arrive in mid-August, and this will provide a welcome shift in the gender balance at Mitsidi. As I have often remarked before it will be good to have a few more women around. I know I am not the only volunteer to think this. I understand we are also to welcome both Zoe and Jonathan back to Chilomoni for a while, and this also will help to make Mitsidi a livelier and more varied place to live!
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