So what are Oyugis schools like?
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To answer that question here are some snapshots and images to help you.

  • No Electricity and therefore no electrical equipment or artificial light during the rains.
  

A classroom block awaiting completion when community money becomes available
  • No running water or well – some schools send pupils to collect water as part of the school day up to 2 km away.
  

Collecting safe water from a capped spring during the lunch break. Many pupils go home at lunchtime despite the walk.
  • Poor and insufficient sanitation - just holes in the ground in the school compound. In some cases just 7 toilets for 600 + children.
   Two toilet blocks in the corner of the school grounds
  • Average class sizes of 40+.
   4 pupils frequently share desks designed for 2
  • Insufficient built classrooms for the pupils. Some pupils are taught under the shade of the trees.
   17 and 18 year olds studying outside due to the lack of classrooms
  • Many classrooms accommodate 60 children with 4 to a desk designed for 2.
 

A classroom with the luxury of a concrete floor
  • Classrooms are very basic - no glass in the windows, holes in corrugated iron roofs, and very hard to teach in the rainy season. Mud floors mean the dust flies especially in the breeze meaning pupils are distracted by painful eyes.
  

Wattle and daub walls, no space for display.
  • Equipment is minimal – just blackboard and chalk, extreme shortages of text books, laboratory equipment, libraries and other educational aids.
   No glass but extra light through the holes punched in the corrugated iron roof. 
  • No reprographics - work is written on the blackboards for pupils to copy.
 

A well worn blackboard where all work is written.
  • Very high percentage of total or partial orphans (the result of HIV/AIDS) who come to school hungry and poorly clothed, many bare footed. Some schools do manage to find the funds to provide porridge or a cabbage/kale meal at lunchtime.
  

The provision of a porridge breakfast attracts pupils from a wide area.
  • Large catchment areas with children having to walk up to 5km each way unaccompanied.
   Two nursery pupils make their way to school.
  • Poor road access to schools, especially in the rainy seasons.
 

Murram roads become very sticky during the rains, surprisingly they are well worn by feet rather than vehicles which are rarely seen in rural areas.
  • In Nurseries (the UK equivalent of Infants) there is no state funding so the teachers are often unpaid volunteers supported by Widows Community groups who are extremely poor themselves.
  

Volunteer nursery teachers, both widows. No formal training, no pay, few resources.
  • Despite all of this few children miss school. They are desperate to learn, often going to school during summer holidays in large numbers when invited to do so.
  

Uniforms are an important part of school life, parents/carers worry if they cannot afford a uniform.
  • Similarly the teachers are ambitious for their pupils, working in poor conditions, frequently foregoing pay and willingly giving up time to teach during their holiday.
  

A school staffroom... Development plans for the year are written on sugar paper and displayed on the walls.
  • Sometimes teachers are paid in kind with produce from the parents' subsistence farms.
  

A classroom filled with drying maize. Some donated in lieu of school fees some grown in farming lessons to be used for making a lunchtime meal or for paying teachers.

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