Education is a key component to seeing sustainable holistic transformation in a community. It serves as a tool to break through poverty traps. Education opens more opportunities for an individual to hold better paying jobs. Increased wages will in turn have a positive impact on the health, nutrition and education of an individual and his/her family members.
At a societal level, developing human capital is a launch pad for endogenous socio-economic growth – a growth caused by the direct results of processes within a community. It leads to innovation, more productivity and sustainable development.
However, in less developed countries where the majority of the population is living below the poverty line, the quality of education is severely diminished by the lack of resources available to the teachers and administration of the school.
Children from poor families in those nations, including Ethiopia attend public schools where the teacher student ratio is 1 to 63.5 and a single text book is shared among three or more students and in some cases it may not be available at all. Moreover, the absences of laboratories, librararies are negatively affecting the educational performance of these children.
Hawelti Primary school in Axum, Ethiopia is a great example of a school in dire need of basic resources taken for granted in the classrooms of more developed countries. Hawelti Primary school began its services in 1980. Despite its long services for more than 550 children in the city, the school has been severely underprivileged.
Classrooms and Furniture
Currently, the school has 16 class rooms. Four old classrooms, which were built in the 1980s, are mud floors. The roof is full of holes (leaking roof), overcrowded and unhygienic for children. However, there are 12 new buildings, 8 of which were recently constructed through the generosity of some American donors. The construction of these classrooms is completed and ready to accommodate students. However, none of them have basic classroom equipments such as student desks and black boards. Any assistance given to furnish those rooms would facilitate and make the teaching-learning process more effective.
The school is also in need of access to drinking water and rest rooms for students and the staff, constructing and furnishing facilities such as library, laboratory, and pedagological rooms. Additionally, constructing a fence is an important need for the safety and security of the students and the school property.
Offices and Equipments
Teachers do not have offices or enough sitting places and desks to do their planning, reading and consulting with their students. They have one office room for which the construction is not completely done and full of dusts and insects. It is also crowded with tables, construction materials and unorganized files. Moreover, they don’t have computers, printers and photocopying machines. They are using an outdated type writer. Teachers need to go to other schools in order to use these facilities to prepare and photocopy exams and other teaching materials.
Hawelti primary school which is providing basic education for more than 550 school children in Axum requires the above facilities and furniture to make the teaching and learning process more effective and to produce active, productive and creative children who are going to be the builders of their community and the nation as a whole.
Be a part of this story by giving to Mosaic Global Mission.
Email Gabriel Forsyth, MGM Coordinator, for more information about other ways you can get involved in this story.
