The Audacity of Hope

As I write this, it is July 2021 and Uganda is still in lockdown with the worst wave of mortality in the rear view and the cries of woe fill the air as families bury loved ones online and mourn with others only if they have a data bundle. The deserted streets remind me of Christmas when after the 25th December the streets are quiet, cars take an annual break, except that this time ‘Christmas’ did not last a week, it has been months. You know what they say about, ‘too much of anything….”

Fatuma, my young friend, is only eight years old, or possibly ten, as she keeps reminding me, her mother is unsure. Fatuma has not been to school in sixteen months. She has played every game in the village, and when I met her, she was helping her mum to sell fried cassava and avocados by the roadside while her mother fries fish for sale next to her. Her baby sister is crawling at her mother's feet on the dusty roadside, ‘bathing’ in dry earth and taking turns to ‘pour it’ in her dark curly hair, which is skilfully held in small sections by a rubber band. My gaze is drawn to Fatuma as she packs cassava into saleable sizes and keeps the flies off it. So, I ask about her school. She confidently states that she is in P3, at least she had been promoted to P3 when schools were first closed in 2020. She stabs three fingers in the air and beamed with pride and she attempted to say P3 which sounded like ‘sree’. I quickly discover that she has not read a book in a long time. I invite her to join me at our office which is not far from her stall and ask the mum to let her come and read with me twice a week. The mother agrees, and Fatuma shows up for our first session at our office library that afternoon.

During our first session, I realized I was way out of my depth. The first book I chose, which was targeting six-year-olds and beginners of primary school, was too complicated for Fatuma. she could not read or identify a single word in it. I expected a P3 pupil to be able to identify some words and form simple sentences at the very least. This, however, was not the case. As a result, we began with numbers. She could recite them up to thirty and was also very good at reciting the alphabet however when I wrote them down, she could not correctly identify any numbers, even the simplest form one to ten. Fatuma could not write her name, even though she could recite the alphabet correctly. For the first time, I was able to understand what rote learning was.

After our first day together, which lasted about two hours, I went to speak with the mother to get a sense of how Fatuma was doing before the schools closed. Fatuma could read and write well, according to her mother. She blamed the pandemic, claiming that being under lockdown had caused her to forget everything. You may wonder if Fatuma has had any remote learning and the simplest answer is no. As it turns out, Fatuma last held a book in March 2020. Mama Fatuma's words are, "Please help her if you can." I ask her if she could get Fatuma a simple exercise book and a pencil for our sessions. She looks at Fatuma and me and says she does not have any money to buy a book. A book costs 500 Ugandan shillings (USD 0.13). I return to my office, lost in thought. Fatuma appears a few minutes later with a book, which she had persuaded her mother to purchase for her. She is eager to learn and her eyes sparkle with a beautiful and gappy smile spread across her face! She announces; “I am ready!” Fatuma must learn now that an investment has been made and a seed has been planted.

When the pandemic first broke out, words like "continuity of learning," "loss of learning gains," and "inequalities," were recurring themes all over the world and synonymous with the challenges of remote learning. Fatuma's situation exemplifies these themes in real life. The incredible loss of any previous learning gains does not need a complex interrogation of lengthy Maths and English exams; it was right there in front of me. Fatuma represents many children in Uganda, and this loss of learning puts her in great danger of dropping out of school entirely as her mother thinks she is better off helping her run errands at the stall. The learning crisis in Uganda before the pandemic was responsible for over 68% of children dropping out before fourth grade. Fatuma is at a tipping point in her learning journey, and the next few months will determine whether she can stay in school or not.

It is a daunting task for me to work with Fatuma and try to undo the damage the lockdown has done to her education. I now appreciate the work that teachers must grapple with, in a class where Fatuma and 80 others all at least two years behind the level they should be at must study. How do they do it? What is worse, is that this is unprecedented. I believe we are in a far worse situation than pre-pandemic learning loss levels and I am convinced that without knowing where the children are academically, we run the risk of losing them altogether. This will be the great, lost generation.

As we continue to hope for and prepare for school re-openings, our top priority is to assist teachers in coping with the challenges ahead. Fatuma and I read once a week and work on math challenges once a week. It is not enough but it is something! She loves reading, she has learnt to write her name is so proud of this – that she writes her name, every single day. We also practice short sentences, like writing her age, tribe, village and giving her voice a platform. Fatuma is someone today, and I hope that having the audacity to dream with her ensures that she stays on the top side of the sieve that separates those who succeed from those who do not. Fatuma is hopeful too, and she calls me teacher Joan. She turns up clean, wearing shoes and our little office is a school away from school, providing a beacon of hope. She is courageous, and together we are optimistic, we are dreaming, we are imagining, and we are courageously creating.

Written by Joan Makuthi

July 2021

Tusome Africa26 August 2021Comment