Student Work Load

Today I was staring at the chalkboard in the our teachers lounge  which displays all the teachers hours for the day and decided to count how many courses my students take in a semester, and realized it was a lot. Instead of the American system of high school where I remember taking 6 classes a semester in an 8 hour day with 2 periods off. My students instead go 8 classes a day with a 15 minute break in the morning for tea and an hour and a half break for lunch. And the classes  are  broken into hours per week instead of a daily rotation. For example  I see each of my s2 classes five hours a week but the way that works our I see S2C three hours in one day, but none of them in a row. In the course of a week my students take  14 different subjects, fourteen! Honestly its insane. Here’s the breakdown:

English

History

French

Kinyarwanda

Biology

Physics

Math

Religion

Geography

Chemistry

Entrepreneurship

Political Educatuion

Swahili

Computer Science

General paper – this is a catch all class that reminds me a lot of “freshman skills”

All of their main courses they take 5 hours a day like English but some of the other classes they have 1, 2 or 3 hours a week. Religion is one  I question exactly what they are teaching because there is not an official religion of Rwanda but I have not seen a ciriculum yet. Also note, these kids are learning 4 languages and taking all their other courses in a language that is not their mother tongue. (They take all their classes in English in an effort to increase English skills more quickly). I was talking with some of the other teachers and asking them how the students handle so many different subjects – especially considering that I know that only about 70% of students pass their final exams on the first try. And yes, they have a final in all of these classes which they must pass to move on to the next grade, but national exams only in 5 or 6 every three years.  I was shocked when the response form the other teachers was, :”they are smarter than American students.” Mhmmm yea ok guys. I responded by informing them that to “pass” a test in American you usually need around 70% whereas in Rwanda 50% is passing. I guess I’ll have to see as the school year progresses but I have a feeling all these classes are too much for people to be successful in all of them.