Q: When did you open this learning center?
A: Three years ago
Q: How many students do you have?
A: 250
Q: And do you do shifts?
A: Yes, we have two shifts. The morning shift is for KG and primary school from 8:00 to 12:30, and secondary school is in the afternoon from 13:30 to 18:00 for seniors 1, 2, and 3.
Q: Do you follow the Sudanese curriculum?
A: Yes, the Sudanese and the South Sudanese. The primary school follows the South Sudanese curriculum and grade 8. Senior 1, 2, and 3, the secondary school, follows the one of Khartoum. We prepare them for the exams in grade 8 and grade 12 at the Sudanese Embassy.
Q: Do you have recognition from the Ministry of Education in Khartoum?
A: No, we have recognition from the Ministry of Education in Juba. We did not even ask the Ministry of Education in Khartoum for approval as we can imagine that they would not give us approval, so we did not send them a letter. We just sent the letter to Juba, and we got approval.
Q: Are you allowed to register your students for the exam at the Sudanese Embassy even if you do not have approval from the Ministry in Khartoum?
A: In Africa, everything is about connections, so we pay some money to the Embassy to register our students so they can do the exams.
Q: Do you teach in English or Arabic?
A: Both, we have two sections for English and Arabic.
Q: What about the translation of the books from Khartoum from English to Arabic?
A: What is written in Arabic, we just translate it to English, we have a teacher who translates the books but he is not here today.
Q: Do the children have books? Where do you get the books from?
A: Yes, we get them from the internet in PDF, print then we give them to them.
Q: How much do the students pay for school fees?
A: 4.700 EgP/year, primary and secondary are the same costs
Q: Do you have students at senior 3 from other nationalities that are not Sudanese or South Sudanese?
A: No, all of them are from Sudan or South Sudan.
Q: Do you think that if an Eritrean does the senior 3 exams, can he enter a public university in Egypt?
A: Yes, of course, you know the Sudanese certificate is well-known in the whole world. It is also approved by the whole world, even better than the South Sudanese curriculum. I am from South Sudan but I decided to do the exams in Khartoum because it is well approved by the whole world. If you want to go to Uganda, Kenya, and Egypt, you can go to all the universities, you know we were colonized by the masters of English, so the certificate is approved by the whole world.
Q: How many classrooms do you have?
A: We have 16 classrooms
Q: Do you have any relationship with the church?
A: No, we are secular
Q: How much do you pay for the villa?
A: 25.000 Egp per month
Q: Do you pay that from the school fees, or do you have any other donors?
A: Just the school fees, CRS gives each student 1.000 EgP but just that, they don’t donate to the school
Q: Are you trying to have donors? With who?
A: I don’t know, with anyone who can help
Q: How many students do you have per class?
A: In a primary maximum of 20, but in grade 8 we have an Arabic section and an English section, and in both sections, there are 40 students.
Q: Do you also have two classes for each grade, like in grade 7 you have an Arabic section and an English section?
A: No, grade 5 is Arabic, grade 6 is Arabic, and grade 8 in Arabic. We do not have grade 7 this year. And English grade 1, 2, 3, and 4. This year we don’t have grade 7 because next year Khartoum will change the system and there won’t be grade 7 anymore. Next year it will be 6 years for primary, and then medium grade 7, 8, and 9, and then secondary grade 10, 11, and 12.
Q: So they would be taking the exam in grade 9 right?
A: Yes
Q: How much do the children pay for the exams?
A: 150 dollars in grade 8 and in grade 12 they pay 550 dollars
Q: For example, this year how many students do you have at senior 3 that will take the exams?
A: We have four, they will take it in June, all of them in Arabic, two from Sudan and two from South Sudan
Q: And last year, how many students did you have at senior 3, and how many passed the exams?
A: Last year there were 5 in grade 12 that took the exams. Of these 5, two are taking it in English, and three are taking it in Arabic. Two passed, and two failed, one in Arabic and one in English.Two were from Sudan and three from South Sudan.
Q: You just have students from South Sudan and Sudan?
A: No, we have Eritreans, Ethiopians, and from Uganda. We have two students from Uganda. They are in primary, grade 6 or 5.
Q: Which religion do you teach them? Christianity or Islam?
A: Muslims take Qur’an lessons and Christians take their religion. In each grade, they chose and split according to their religion.
Q: How many teachers do you have? Do all of them have a university degree?
A: We have 20 teachers. No, most of them are South Sudanese university students. For example, I am 25 and I am in my second year at Cairo University studying Business Administration, but I also teach them religion.
Q: Can I ask you how much you pay your teachers?
A: We pay them 2.000 EgP, all the same even if they are graduated or not
Q: Once they pass the exam do you help them apply to university?
A: No, they just pass and they just go and apply.
Q: Don’t you help them with the procedure?
A: No, once they pass the exam they need to go to the bank and pay 2,000 EgP to Wafidin just for applying. Once you have paid you go to Wafidin with the recipe and they give you a user account and a password then you enter the webpage and apply for university. Then they tell you if you are accepted or rejected. If you are rejected you lose your money. If you are accepted you need to pay again 2,000 EgP to complete the application plus what you pay at university. The Egyptians do not need to do that. And for us, they just put it this year, because many students were going to Wafidin to apply and then they did not go to university.
Q: Did you do the Khartoum exam for going to university?
A: Yes, and I got 64.1% over 100%, I took it in English and it was so hard. It seemed like a newspaper, 8 pages, and even some of the students doing it fainted. It was so hard, this is because I say that this exam is approved by the whole world, as it is so hard, you need to memorize a lot and then put everything. You choose the subjects depending on what you want to study at university.
Q: Do you teach them computers?
A: Yes
Q: How many computers do you have?
A: Three computers, we just had them last year because we were in debt. We opened the school and then COVID-19 came, so we were still paying debts, now we could get three computers.
Q: How do you teach your students computers with three computers only?
A: Sometimes they come to the office and any teacher shows them
Q: Do you do advertisements?
A: We have Facebook, and sometimes we put posters in churches.
Q: Do you feed the kids?
A: Yes, every kid brings food from their home and they eat it here
Q: Do you have a playground?
A: No, but sometimes on Sundays we take them to a park
Q: Do you allow parents to pay the school fees in tournaments?
A: Yes, last week we expelled a lot of children. We asked the children to bring the money for the school fees, and many did not bring it so we did not allow them to enter the school. (Observation: I was wondering why they were telling a 6-year-old child to bring the money and not the parents personally, I did not ask, his English was also not good, so I thought that it was maybe a misunderstanding.)
Observations Júlia Arenós Karsten: The school has four floors. The school building is big but the school is not well-organized, it is chaotic. The principal does not know English, the teachers do not know English, and the KG teacher does not know English. There is little furniture, and the one that they have is broken. I asked them where the furniture came from and they told me that these were donations from some Egyptian businesses, I could guess that they give them the old broken things. There was this big space divided in two with just a piece of wood, it was supposed to be two classrooms, children are sitting one over another, and they do not even have space to put their books or sheets on the table. Some of them just sit on a plastic chair in the middle of the class. There was also this class with students that were like 8 years old and there was no teacher, and I asked him where is the teacher. He told me that there was one teacher for three classes, so she went from class to class. Also in grade 8 they are 40 in a class, that is too much.
The space is not adequate for learning and teaching, the blackboards are small, and there is no silence. There is a lot of noise, the space is not cozy nor comfortable. They struggle to get a proper place in the classroom where to sit. Students do not even have a space at the table where they can leave their books and papers. It is impossible to concentrate there, not for the children, nor for the teachers. The English language is inexistent, the IT skills too. The only cozy and comfortable place could be the KG. It is colorful, there are drawings on the walls and the furniture is nice and colorful. The class is decorated with posters. But the other rooms are empty, sad, dirty, and uncomfortable. They also do not feed the children, it is impossible for them to concentrate if they are hungry. The principal does not care and the teacher who took me around explained everything to me, finding this so normal. He seemed indifferent. I was shocked. These children pay a large number of school fees, 4.500 EgP/year is relatively high in comparison to other learning centers, but the education that they are getting is horrible. I also just saw at the wand a sheet with the results of the monthly examinations (January 2021) for grade 8, English section. During that year there were 27 students, all of them took Maths, English, Religion, History, Arabic, Science, and Technique, then they do the average of each subject and they get the final remark that tells if they have passed or not. Of 27 students only 14 passed. It is not normal that half of the class is failing. There are even studies that demonstrate that if half of the class is not passing this is a problem of the teaching system and not of the students themselves. Also, the teacher who took me around was constantly insisting and making me super angry, he said you know, last week we needed to expel so many students, we did not allow them to enter school, we asked them to bring the money but they did not.
