Working in Addis

Working in Addis

 

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and enjoying the October break. I hope the weather is kind to you. We have been having rain for the past four days. Real proper thundery rain. The streets are rivers of mud. But it is good for Ethiopia and it is good for continued electricity supply. So actually I am happy to see the rain. I have been working at the Ministry of Education now for three weeks. I am officially a 'suit'. Aaarrgghh! But although it is called the Ministry it is more like what I imagine working at Wheatley House is like – lots of people looking busy, wandering around endlessly with bits of 'important-looking' bits of paper, telling everyone they are 'soooo busy' and completely disorganised and not getting much done. But that is harsh on my Ethiopian colleagues. They do work hard, but are completely disorganised. No filing system or recording system. Meetings are plentiful but no minutes are ever recorded. Also meetings are very often cancelled as people simply do not turn up. Phones go off and are answered during meetings and it is quite humorous to see grown men crouching under a desk and whispering into their phone, all simply because 'that call' could not go unanswered. My colleague Solomon is particularly guilty of this. Every day he says to me, 'Can I answer this? It is very important. I get a lot of important calls.' I reply 'does it make a difference what I say?' and he just laughs.

 

I have quite a good team. They don't call themselves a department, not sure why. The whole department I am working in is called a Core Process, headed by the core process owner, then we have the sub-process headed by the sub-process owner, but no mention of a department. My three colleagues (also known as counter-parts for VSO) are Solomon, Tsegaw and Hamid. Together we are in charge of ELQIP – English Language Quality Improvement Programme. (I officially got my name on my door on Friday!) Within that I am involved in ELTIP – English Language Teachers Improvement Programme. This involves several things. First I co-ordinate the ELICs nationwide - English Language Improvement Centres. There are around 30 ELICs in the country which provide courses or clubs or anything else relevant to support the students and staff in colleges and universities to improve their English. All subjects are taught in English from secondary school onwards. But there are major gaps in teachers English. It is my job to ensure that ELICs are running smoothly and they get what resources they need – which looks like it is going to be a difficult task. At the moment I am conducting a census of what centres we have as Tsegaw does not have an up-to-date list of centres and their co-ordinators. Also it is hoped that in the next month I will have to monitor and evaluate quite a number of centres which means a field trip – yippee. I get to leave Addis and travel the length of the country. I am so looking forward to that. But that trip has been suspended (lots of suspension here, though not in the buses!) till I complete a task given to me directly from the State Minister. His office is lovely. Huge Jimmy Saville type chairs, only in leather and mahogany, with a large flat screen t.v. I have been given the job of writing up a 'profile' of all the qualities a primary and secondary teacher would have. Solomon and I are preparing to train 40,000 teachers to improve their English Language, both in proficiency and methodology. It is quite an ambitious task and the aim is to have assessed all English teachers' skills gaps and then devise modules which will address these skills gaps and then train teacher trainers to ensure all teachers have access to these modules and hey presto – all English teachers in Ethiopia will have improved English skills. It is hoped this will all be done in the next three years. If I get it right and do some of the training myself, maybe we can have Ethiopian teachers all speaking with a broad Glasgow accent! So I am pretty busy at the moment, especially as I get the odd editing task to do as well. Just finished editing the government's policy on HIV and AIDS. Very interesting. So I am pretty busy, but so far the work is interesting, though at times frustrating. It is a long day, 8.30am – 5.30pm with a one hour lunch. But two hours on a Friday. Thankfully I have my own room with internet access which is great and I have a lovely view of the hills surrounding Addis from my window. So it is pretty nice. I can wander off and visit other VSOs in the building who work close by. My friends David and Maureen, who are in charge of CPD nationwide, work on the same floor, which is nice and we go for lunch together.

 

I have loads more to share, and my next instalment will be The Walk to Work. Many interesting sites include, Chinese Road building, adopting cute small children and goats tied to roof racks. Take care everyone. You are all in my heart and thoughts and prayers. Have a great October week.

 

Love Joanne in Ethiopia.

---

Use Hotmail to send and receive mail from your different email accounts. Find out how.