A Case of Two Schools

Oars sliced through the water near Karachi’s main port.  The rowers worked in unison, pushing their shells toward construction cranes that towered over the mangroves. I sat on the Karachi Boat Club’s pier watching my host’s children and their friends practice competitive rowing. Most of them attend the same private school.  I stared towards the Arabian Sea, reminded of a different group of high school students. They’re also located near the sea. But, their school places them at a disadvantage.

This summer, I interned with the Population and Community Development Association.  I visited their 10^th grade Mechai Bamboo School (MBS) for disadvantaged children. It was part of an idyllic resort in Pattaya.

My responsibilities also took me to the school’s main campus in Buriram. While there, I learned how the organization promotes the school. They claim it is a great improvement from similar government institutions.  It's described as a center of "lifelong learning" that imparts English ability and micro-business skills.  The Bamboo School boosts of its well rounded curriculum, developed by teachers and students.

I didn’t have much opportunity to talk with the students in Buriram. That was not the case in Karachi. My host’s daughter was class president at Karachi’s private Center for Advanced Studies. The school exhibits a marked improvement over government educational centers. Students are schooled in English and Urdu. The curriculum prepares students for acceptance to international universities while teaching them respect for local culture and religion. Students, with faculty oversight, manage discipline among themselves.  

At first glance, the schools’ methods seem similar. Except for one major thing.  The Thai school provides meaningful education to the needy. The Pakistani school reserves it for those who can pay.

Teaching students to not rely on hand-outs? 

But MBS does require a form of pay. It’s just not the kind that can fund its operating costs. Students’ families must plant trees in order to pay the school’s “tuition.”  The organization promotes that children perform one hour of community service in the School Lunch Garden to receive a meal. This is ostensibly so students will learn to value work instead of relying on hand-outs.  After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch at the bamboo school, right?

Wrong.

Anyone who visits the school for more than a short time notices the deficit between promotional literature and reality. A donation box for the students’ lunch sits at the entrance where parents pick up their students. The students receive some level of “free” lunch through donations. The Bamboo School advertises that it closes during “rice planting season.” In fact, the school only closes for two days with little rice planting involved.

The landscaped entrance to MBS

 I saw students in class exactly once during my entire two-month internship. Assemblies in honor of visiting sponsors seemed much more common. When I inquired as to the students’ course load, PDA employees discreetly told me that donor visits necessitate a sparse class schedule.  According to an English Teacher, the pupils’ English levels are actually no higher than in average government schools. Contrary to what is claimed in the brochures, student participation in curriculum development is non-existent.

Back in Karachi, the Center for Advanced Studies seemed to deliver on its promises. It’s easy to see why:  CAS requires monetary tuition. This frees it from the need to put sponsors first. Most Pakistani families cannot afford the price of attendance. However, the value of granting some few a quality education benefits a country far more than professing to provide it to many.

Still, those who cannot pay have few options. Government schools are often sub-standard, especially in the developing world. Pakistanis, who place a high value on community service, have started NGOs of their own to provide alternative schools for the poor. But, they also require donations from sponsors.

 Organized religion sometimes offers a solution. My Pakistani host is a successful businessman. He was educated in a Catholic school.  In Lahore I met some students from a local mosque. They were quite friendly and seemed knowledgeable about local history.  The students’ English was far better than any I’d encountered from their older MBS counterparts in Thailand.

Radical mosque near Jinnah's Tomb

Yet, such religious education also carries risk, especially in Pakistan. On a visit to Jinnah’s tomb, my host pointed to a minaret about one block from the Quaid-e-Azam’s resting place. “This is a very controversial mosque,” he told me. He went on to explain that most of its students go on to join the Taliban.

Rowing at the boat club was over. Our driver navigated Karachi’s gridlock; we arrived safely home. It occurred to me that the value of any service is equal to its outcome. A high quality education affords its recipient an opportunity. But, it is up to that person to take advantage. It makes no economic sense to expect something from nothing. Charity isn’t always the answer.  

Up-Country

I was happy to return to Ban Huay Sala School.  We were with the 17-year-old son of a Korean donor, who wanted to show the students how to make kimchi and take pictures. Kuhn San Hun, the school's  head English, teacher told us that he wanted us to give an encore English lesson. I agreed, but knew it might be hard.

I’d asked to go up country again to observe teacher trainings. No such trainings materialized as my departure date arrived. As we set up our lesson plans the next day, my supervisor announced that I was to attend a training at another school.  

 As I said goodbye to the students, they seemed happy that the other interns would remain, but were disappointed at my departure. Surprisingly, so was I. I’d only spent a few days teaching here. It was the closest I’d come to making an impact.

 I boarded the van, watched the fields roll by and  thought about letting the students know they could come visit me when they got a bit older. Then I thought better of it. When I was around 14 I went skiing in British Columbia, and took tropical vacations in the BVI.  It occurred to me that most of them would probably never leave Thailand. Its  improbable that people from such different cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds could make any kind of connection. I’d like to think we did.

I only stayed at the teacher training about 45 minutes. Obviously, the training was in Thai; no one was sent with me to translate.

 The local English instructor  gave me and a visiting American teacher a ride back.  He told us that our visits to schools do work in that they really make the children want to learn English. The visiting teacher said she’d been told to teach English by my organization, as the local teacher watched best practices. The only problem that she happened to be a literature teacher!  “I don’t know what they’re thinking” she said.  “Frankly, I think it’s insulting to the teachers and the children.”

 It’s better than nothing. Although both English teachers I saw on this trip speak well, others can’t even hold a basic conversation. The question still remains: Why wern't we sent to a school were the faculty’s English level is a problem?

I did teach English the next day. The students were happy to see me. But, they seemed a bit jaded. In the month after my organization’s program started they’d seen a virtual parade of westerners tour their school. In older projects, the students practically ignore our continued visits.

 Later that day, a younger intern was trying to figure out what benefit learning photography could be to the villagers. I had to break the news to him. “He’s the son of the village’s sponsors” I informed him. “The benefit is his family’s continued sponsorship”.

 We attended a tree planting the next day. Villagers receive 40 baht (about 60  U.S. cents) per tree toward capital in their micro-credit bank. We bounced over dirt paths through the rice paddies until we finally arrived at the site. I’d expected the villagers to regard our presence as interference. They couldn’t have been more welcoming.  At one point, an old woman came over and cut open my tree’s plastic root lining. “She is 80 years old” a translator told me. In an odd way she reminded me of my grandmother, who taught me to garden as a child. We worked as a team until lunch.

The villagers served us on reed mats under older trees. The Koreans demanded the villagers bring their lunch to where we left our van. But, they are the ones providing the 40 baht per tree.  We eventually convinced them to walk to where we had stopped planting.

This was likely my last trip to Buriram. I am going to miss it. The trip encompassed the best of what my organization does for rural villagers. But is it  enough? Is it counterproductive?  Or is it effective NGO work?

You decide.