School visits in Wilgamuwa

On the 26th of October 2022, David, Lily and I were fortunate enough to find the time to revisit Wilgamuwa Zone in the Matale district and visit some of the schools that belonged to the zone. It had been a little more than a month since I had last visited Wilgamuwa for a workshop with a diverse group of stakeholders that belonged to the Wilgamuwa Education Zone. We needed to return and build relationships with schools and further evaluate their circumstance.

Wilgamuwa is about 110 km from Kandy and the most central town is Hettipola, which is where the Zonal Office is. There are two routes to Wilgamuwa, the first is above the knuckles mountain range through Matale and Naula, and the second is below the mountain range through the famous 18 bend road of Sri Lanka. Which is the route that we took this time. By the time we reached Wilgamuwa, it was night and we would need to start early to cover the three schools that we planned to visit.

Madakanda Kanishta Vidyalaya

The first school on our list was Madakanda K.V. I met the principal and the English teacher the last time we visited Wilgamuwa at the aforementioned workshop and it was good to see them again. We visited at a good time because we had the school's 15th Anniversary was coming up and the principal, teachers, students and parents had organised a market on that day. The children had brought a variety of fruits, vegetables and handicrafts which they sold to the villagers and parents in the area. Very enterprising!

We sat down to speak to the principal for a chat about the school. He has been a teacher in the school since 2013 and was now the acting principal for the last two years. He spoke to us mainly about the teacher shortage issue and how it is a struggle to make sure all subjects are taught. The School taught up until O-Levels, after which children would shift to a more central school. The school has about 250 children with 16 teachers. The English teacher of the school who sat with us said that she teaches dancing too and that many teachers would "double hat" and teach an extra subject. The principal has attempted to solve this issue by scouting for volunteer teachers. Volunteer teachers are teachers not formally recruited by the education system but brought in by the school as substitutes that teach for a small allowance or completely voluntarily. He said that he had one teacher that travelled to the school all the way from Ampara and he would teach science across all grades. He also recruited a teacher to teach Tamil at the school and these teachers are compensated irregularly with the help of the school development society.

We did a brief visit to the library and IT Lab. We found that the IT lab had only one computer out of six functioning and the library too needed more help. There was no mobile signal in the school as it was quite a rural school. To say the least, it needed teachers and people to help them turn things around. On several occasions, the principal said that the children are smart and that they just need a functioning school to help them. The following are some pictures of the school, the market and a picture of David and Lily with the Principal of the school.

Bogahawewa Kanishta Vidyalaya

As I left the school, I got phone reception and had 5 missed call notifications from the principal of Bogahawewa. She was very keen on making sure we had not got lost! The drive there was beautiful, through fields with mountains in the distance and small village shops on the side of the road. The principal met us at the gate and took us straight in to visit the classrooms. The school used to be up until grade 9, but the Zonal Authorities wanted to make it a primary school. But, the principal had negotiated that they teach till grade 8 as most of the children in the area would find it hard to travel to schools in the town. The children that attended the school came from difficult backgrounds. It was a school with 105 students and 8 teachers.

The school was quaint and had a garden and field for the children and teachers to grow plants and trees that were relevant to the curriculum. The garden had flower beds made in shapes, which they used to teach the younger children. We went from class to class and met some of the kids and spoke to them. Ms Menaka, the principal was a go-getter. She had been a teacher in Wilgamuwa for many years and had been the principal at Bogahawewa since 2016. She explained there are ways in which they find solutions for the school, she maintains strong leadership and acquires the support of the school development society. Through the School Development society, they would lobby for support and change wherever needed. She explained that she is committed to working with the teachers to ensure that the children have some sort of better future. She refers to the teachers as her heroes.

At this school, we also met with a young volunteer teacher named Vikum, who had done his degree in Colombo in Buddhist Culture while doing an HRM diploma online. He has started teaching at the school without any compensation and teachers multiple subjects. I couldn't help but think, that we already have young people in these areas actually making strides in line with the mission of Teach For Sri Lanka in these schools.

Weheragalyaya Kanishta Vidyalaya

The last school we visited was Weheragalayaya and it was afternoon. The principal was not at the school and we met two teachers that showed us around. Weheragalyaya taught up to grade 11 and had 200 students and 11 teachers. In terms of physical resources, they asked for help with their IT lab and library. One of the teachers was Sajith who I had met on my last visit. Sajith was a teacher who had served 5 years of his 10-year contract as a teacher and he had such a long contract because he was from Wilgamuwa and was a graduate teacher who had done an Economics degree at the University of Peradeniya. The other teacher was Kelum, who was from Polonnaruwa, which was a neighbouring district to Matale. He had completed his contract of 5 years as a teacher and wanted to transfer to a school in Polonnaruwa. They showed us around the school and similarly, Weheragalyaya had to recruit volunteer teachers and pay them through the school welfare. Both Sajith and Kelum taught multiple subjects including Maths, Business Studies and Science.

While walking around the school we found an open classroom space (see picture below), where a volunteer teacher was teaching dancing. An interesting anecdote that Sajith shared with us is that back in 2016, there were 60-odd young graduates from the Wilgamuwa/ Matale region that applied to be teachers in Wilgamuwa and wrote the selection exam. However only 2 were selected that year, he explained that if the ministry was flexible to allow more teachers from this region to teach, the shortage of teachers would not be this severe.

All the schools needed help in terms of computers and library resources. At the moment Lily and David are organising a community to support contributions for these schools, so if you are interested in helping please reach out. We ended the day with a meeting with our board, and what a setting for our meeting. The visits to these schools really made me think about the impact the teachers and principals are making with what they have. Given the chance and proper support to create and initiate more change, it is very likely that they would.

That's all from me, this is Jeremy signing out. I hope to bring you more news and information about our work. So keep an eye out for more content.

Have a good week!