Manekanto, Aumisoe District

6.2.6.1. Description of the Community

Picture 9 A gold mine in Manekanto Manekanto, with its two communities − the Akan and

the Fanti – governed by their respective chiefs, is located in a hilly area surrounded by cocoa and palm oil farms, as well as forest reserve. The whole village has approximately 100 households. The Akan forms the majority, but the communities have a diversity of ethnicities, partly as a result of migration for

agricultural purposes from different parts of the country.

The communities have good access to water throughout the year from six boreholes. There is a large market on Tuesdays and Fridays, in addition to several kiosks that are open every

day. Fresh vegetables and basic consumables are readily available, but there is sometimes a shortage of other foodstuff.

Most community members are settler cocoa and/or palm oil farmers, working on others‟ plantations in return for a share of the produce. Illegal small-scale mining is also another major source of income (picture 9), and the mine where the Ashanti Gold Company (AGC) operated until 2005 is a 30-minue walk away. The men mine at this site, while the women just dig ditches in the village after it has rained.

6.2.6.2. Description of the School

The Manekanto Primary School with an enrolment of 254 (139 boys and 115 girls) was headed by a female trained teacher, and had five teachers − one trained and four untrained teachers, specifically, three pupil teachers and one volunteer teacher. Similarly, the JSS with an enrolment of 66 (37 boys and 29 girls) was headed by a male trained teacher, and had five teachers, specifically, three trained and two untrained teachers, who were pupil teachers. The primary HT was the only female and none of the teachers were from the community. Only one teacher, the volunteer teacher, who was a pastor as well, lived in the community with his family; except for one teacher, who commuted from another

community relatively nearby, the rest stayed in the TQ (table 39 and 40).

I planned to study the primary HT in-depth, after I had received a good impression about her on my first visit due to her efforts in a PTA meeting to sort out the delayed payment for the volunteer teacher and her teaching with lesson plans open, in addition to

recommendations by the DEO for this study. However, the primary school was the only case without up-to-date teachers‟ attendance records62. During my second visit to the school, I was told by some of the HT‟s staff, and community members, that the HT – who was off sick at the time – did not attend regularly, perhaps twice a week. On the other hand, the volunteer teacher attended regularly and punctually; although his attendance rate for the first term was 0%, according to him and other teachers, his HT had told him not to sign the attendance registry as he was not a GES employee.

62

Records had been kept for two thirds of the first term, only the first two days of the second term and not at all in the third term.

Table 39 Details of teachers of Manekanto Primary School A ge _Gend e r Qualifi- cation Roles Years in teaching _Mar it al S ta tu s Na ti v e F ami ly P ro g . Attendance Rate in 2007/08 Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Ave- rage 1 48 F Trained HT, P1 2004- M √ 57.4 na na n/a 2 25 M Pupil Assistant HT P4 and P5 /P663 2005- M √

25.5 n/a n/a n/a 3 26 M Pupil P4 and

P5 /P664

2005- S √

25.5 n/a n/a n/a 4 52 M Volun. P3 2004- M √ √ 0.0 n/a n/a n/a 5 51 M Pupil P2 2005- M 70.2 n/a n/a n/a Gender: M=male; F=female. Marital status: M=married; S=single. Qualification: Voln. =Volunteer. Native: √=Teacher from the community. Family: √=Teacher living with his family in the community. Prog.: √=Teacher taking an upgrade programme

Source: ethnographic research.

Table 40 Details of teachers of Manekanto JSS

A ge _Gen d e r Qualifi- cation Roles Years in teaching _Mar it al S ta tu s Na ti v e F ami ly P ro g . Attendance Rate in 2007/08 Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Ave- rage 1 36 M Trained HT, Science 2004- (TT) S √ 83.1 88.3 78.1 84.0 2 32 M Trained Assistant HT Agric science, Pre-Voc 2005- S √ 81.7 73.3 78.1 77.9 3 54 M Pupil Twi, religions and moral 2003- M 53.5 60.0 53.1 55.8 4 25 M Trained Maths 2005- S 73.2 53.3 62.5 63.8 5 26 M Pupil Social studies, English 2005- S √ 93.0 95.0 84.4 92.0 Gender: M=male; F=female. Marital status: M=married; S=single.

Native: √=Teacher from the community. Family: √=Teacher living with his family in the community. Prog.: √=Teacher taking an upgrade programme

n/a=not available.

Source: ethnographic research.

63 _{He taught}

mathematics and Twi.

6.2.6.3. Living Conditions of Teachers

Eight teachers lived in the TQ located at the edge of the community and built by the DA. It consisted of four two-bedroom houses with a kitchen, toilet and bathroom. As the primary HT, being a woman, occupied a house, two pupil teachers shared a room.

All eight teachers living in the TQ, except the primary HT, farmed in the community. They cultivated foodstuff, such as plantain, coco-yam, and maize, renting pieces of land and sharing half of the harvest with the owner of the land. The two young pupil teachers were also involved in illegal mining. Because of these economic activities, some of the teachers stayed in the community over some weekends and during vacation periods. The second job seemed an important factor by which teachers are physically attached to the community.

There were kiosks here and a large market took place twice a week, though this did not necessarily mean that the teachers could get what they wanted, even in terms of staple foodstuff. One trained teacher noted:

What we can eat, sometimes we cannot find. We cannot get food to buy and eat, not [only] the ingredients65, but foodstuff [staples], something: yam, cassava, coco-yam, maybe kenkey [fermented maize]. At times, you hold money, but you cannot get it. It appears that teachers‟ well-being may not be secured only with accommodation, a regular salary, and even with markets. Food issues seem more serious in Aumisoe than in

Ponkujaku.

6.2.6.4. Relationships with Colleagues

The primary school and the JSS operated as two independent schools: they had morning assembly and closing assembly separately; and each HT had his or her office. The primary HT‟s office, unlike that of the JSS HT, was closed while she was not around. Indeed, the primary teachers‟ attendance book, which was not up-to-date, was kept in a cupboard in an unlocked classroom all the time. Her office was not a place for other teachers to enter freely, unlike in the JSS‟s; her office cupboard held some teaching and learning materials.

The primary HT‟s professional life, as depicted by her staff, seemed quite different from the impression that the DEO had of her. The teachers suggested that this might be because the DEO treated the HT differently to how it treated the other teachers, often listening to the HT‟s point of view and not to anyone else‟s − who were untrained. As a result, the HT had a closer relationship with the DEO than with her own staff, which seemed to prevent some officers from seeing what was really going on and resulted in them valuing the opinions of other teachers at the school less. One of her untrained teachers said:

She is accountable to no one here. None of [the] teachers can go [to] the office. Rather, she is accountable to those people in the office, that is, the director. So, if she goes to the office and says everything [is] good, then everything is good. If a teacher goes to the office, [they will say about him or her], “Oh, this man came and what [he] told is not the truth.” But this is the truth. But because the headmistress has been there to narrate a story to them, …they do not mind [listen to] you. What they ask you is, “Are you a headmaster?” The moment you say “no,” they will tell you, “If you are not a headmaster, go home.”

Another teacher said, “If the headmaster has a good relationship with the director and a bad relationship with us, he has no problem.” It appeared that the DEO was not only ritualised in its monitoring (Hedges 2002), but also encouraged poorly performing trained teachers, with, in the main, too much emphasis on teaching qualifications and not enough on actual work practice. Some of untrained teachers, especially younger ones, did not hesitate to share their intentions to leave teaching altogether, once they finished the UTDBE. They were frustrated in their professional lives, finding that their efforts were not only invisible to the DEO, but that also their existence was not important to the system. Their willingness to support younger ones itself does not seem to sustain teachers‟ long-term commitment to teaching. There needs to be more of an emphasis on occupational culture to examine how to address teacher motivation.

The JSS HT was an opposite type of teacher to the primary HT. He was regular and

punctual, although his attendance rate of 84% was not very high: he was attending a degree programme in business studies that had biweekly classes in Kumasi. He had a good

relationship with his colleagues in both their professional and private lives: he was

approachable by any teacher of both primary and JSS and male teachers sometimes cooked and ate together. On the other hand, he did not spend as much private time with his

colleagues as did teachers in Jamune (see box 3). He was planning to leave teaching altogether, mainly due to his frustration in the relationship with the community and the DEO, as will be discussed in the next section and the next chapter respectively. This suggests that having hard-working colleagues does not always sustain teachers‟

commitment. Teachers are subjected to influence from factors outside the school, such as the community and the DEO.

Box 3 The JSS HT’s daily life

The HT of JSS got up at around 6 am, bathed and listened to the radio news. He left the TQ for school around 7:15 am and was in school by 7:30 am. Most days, he was the first one to sign in the attendance registry. He often bought prepared food for his breakfast and lunch in the community. Occasionally, he cooked by himself or with his male colleagues. He often did not eat dinner and went to his bedroom by 7 pm.

6.2.6.5. Relationship with the Community

All community members I interviewed, including the two chiefs, SMC chairman and two women, said that they thought education was important and were willing to send their children to school. They also said that the school had become “more disciplined”, with attendance by both teachers and pupils being more regular and punctual, which was an indication of the improvement. However, Manekanto was the only case where I felt mistrust and tension between the teachers and the community, rather than the

misunderstanding seen in the case of Nakaose, which was due to a difference in the notion of teachers‟ well-being. Indeed, both teachers and members of the community used words such as “quarrel” and “fights” when they were describing the situation.

Teachers acknowledged some support by the community, such as the occasional provision of foodstuff, but they found that the community members had much less interest in

education than the teachers could wish. This situation is not peculiar to Manekanto, as it is common to teachers in all three above mentioned cases. When teachers in Manekanto made a request for pupils to be prevented from watching the video shows until late night, they were told, “You teachers are earning. Are you saying we should not earn? Do you say we should not eat?” Teachers in Jamune had similar reactions from some of the community members, according to them, but they attributed it to parents‟ “not understanding the

essence of education”. It did not seem to harm the relationship between the teachers and the community. However, those in Manekanto described the exchanges as “insults” with complaints and disagreement expressed in a disrespectful manner. The JSS HT said:

If there is something about your child and you cannot come to us to discuss, what else can we do to help the child? It‟s a 2-way communication. What a child does in the house and what he does at school, two of us sit down and discuss… [But] parents pass unnecessary comments [behind teachers‟ backs].

Teachers said that they were challenged by some of parents/guardians about more

fundamental issues. When teachers advised them to buy exercise books and stationery, the parents/guardians told them that education should be free and the school had the capitation grant to cater for those. The delay of payment for two terms for the volunteer teacher, although his dedication had been recognised by his P3 pupils66, was always addressed in PTA meetings, but the wages were still due. At one point, he had to stop studying for the UTDBE due to financial difficulties. Teachers tended to observe that parents were reluctant to support education or teachers, while they could spend money on funerals.

Teachers in Manekanto seemed to attribute what was happening to the low level of respect they had in the community. Indeed, teachers complained about the lack of respect that the community seemed to have for them; in the other schools, teachers felt at least respected, although they did not receive the support they would have liked. Some teachers thought their salary was low and the fact that the villagers could make more money through farming and illegal gold mining was felt to be a reason why teachers received less respect. One untrained teacher said:

Here, when they [community members] go there [to the gold mines], they get ¢30 – some get ¢50 – when you, as a teacher, [earn] ¢1 a day. So, you are [a] little man to them, so they have no respect for you. So, when they come to school, some of [the] kids don‟t respect the teachers.

A trained teacher reiterated the point:

People here go for gold mining or farming. They make money; they earn more. They don‟t respect teachers who can‟t earn like them.

66 _{The volunteer teacher had taught the class since his pupils had been P1. When he announced that he would} stop teaching due to the delay of payment for two terms, P3 pupils went to him to beg him to continue teaching them. This was confirmed by other teachers as well. In addition, the number of P3 remained large compared to P2‟s.

Another untrained teacher said:

Their concern is to get money quick. They don‟t think anything else. When they get money, they wouldn‟t do anything good. Even they waste it. They don‟t use money for something important or proper, but for buying dresses to go to a funeral. Teachers‟ disappointment that they do not get enough community support might be greater if they perceive the community as being financially capable.

Teachers also pointed out there was less solidarity among community members, partly because the community consisted of two sub-communities, each with its own chief. They perceived that community members tended to be interested in their people‟s presence rather than the development as a whole group. One untrained teacher said:

If somebody gets up to do something for the community, then somebody else decides to pull the person down, destroy the plan, and destroy the person, so that that person will not achieve the plan for the community … At the end of the day, the person doesn‟t have the mind to help the community.

A trained teacher said:

They [community members] are from different, different, different towns. Because they are not the same tribe, they do not work [as one community]. They do not have that belief. The solidarity is very weak. I am from this town, you are from that town. They do not see the reason they should support something good … They cherish funerals rather than [communal] labour. They cherish funerals. For that one, they are one.

On the other hand, some community members indicated that their reluctance to work with teachers partly resulted from teachers‟ attitudes; teachers were perceived to be aggressive to enquiries made by the community. One of the community members said:

If they [community members] speak about problems and teachers hear that, there will be quarrels. So most are afraid to speak of any problems and about what is going on. So if you ask someone anything, they don‟t have anything to say, because they are afraid. They keep everything in their minds. So they say no problem to you, because teachers go and fight against them. That is a problem.

The same member pointed out the lack of accountability of the school for its capitation grant. He explained:

Many people ask what about the capitation grant money. We don‟t know what they are doing in the school. We don‟t see that money. So people are worried about that

money. Where is it? ...We don‟t know if the money is used for the school. We are annoyed.

Some other community members were also very negative about some teachers‟ use of corporal punishment; one of fathers said that one of his sons had stopped going to school because of a fear of being caned. Indeed, although teachers thought it necessary to

discipline “stubborn” pupils, who were absent from or late for school and failed to do home work, what I saw with full force was not an instilling of “discipline”; rather, it was abuse. I felt it might be a sign of teachers‟ frustration. The lack of respect for teachers may have resulted partially from their attitudes, such as some teachers‟ absenteeism, the perceived lack of accountability regarding the use of the capitation grant, the use of corporal punishment, and the unfriendly attitudes to enquiries.

The case of Manekanto, similar to the case of trained teachers in Nakaose, suggests that respect for teachers is not automatically accorded by the community, nor is support for the teachers. The community needs to be convinced that the teachers are performing and are ready to listen to the members. Similarly, teachers need evidence of the community‟s interest and intention to support education as a partner. Each may encourage the other positively or negatively. In other words, both need to be encouraged to fulfil the „social contract‟ (Essuman 2010).

On the other hand, the negative spiral of mistrust between the teacher and the community may have been mitigated if there had been leader(s) who could listen to each side. Without leadership of the community, teachers seem to be put in a discouraging position where they cannot talk with community members rationally about education, including any

misunderstandings that may have arisen. 6.2.6.6. Teachers’ Identities and Personalities

My initial intention of staying in the community was to study the primary HT‟s life. However, I shifted from studying her to focusing on the JSS HT, not because she was absent during my second stay, but because the JSS HT was a committed teacher who was trying to maximise pupils‟ learning. On the other hand, he was a very dissatisfied teacher and intended to leave the job in the near future.

The JSS HT‟s virtue as a teacher seemed to be shaped partly by his Christian belief. He