Before I tell you more about WACA, I must start with some more general information about the school system in Senegal. I have always said that educational arrangements in a country show a lot about the priorities the country has. In Estonia, there is a very good public school system. Due to the Soviet times in the country, public schools are the ones with long traditions, and new private schools don't often meet the standard, so most of the parents prefer public schools. As those are free, many young people don't pay anything for school fees, even in the best universities. That was the case with me too.

Now in Senegal, things are not at all that rosy. You pay a considerable amount of money for school fees, even in public schools. No wonder then that many children never set their foot in a classroom - their parents just do not have the means to pay for the school fees, books and stationery (as I said, nothing is free). The literacy rate of Senegal is a sad 39%. Even if a child is lucky to go to public school, there are still problems as you may easily find yourself in a class of 60 students where about 20of these students have books.

Private schools in Senegal are the way to go if you really want your child to flourish academically. Unfortunately, the fees there are out of reach for most. The first time I heard what our school fees were at WACA (also a private school) I was quite shocked - even most private schools of Estonia don't charge that much, and Senegal is a very poor country. But hey, there were families who had four kids in our school, so their monthly school fees exceeded my salary quite comfortably. I am quite happy that my kids are going to get education in Estonia, free. :)

In many ways, my life as a teacher was much easier in Senegal than in Europe. First and foremost, the Africans have not yet initiated the student-friendly system where students have all the rights and teachers all the responsibilities, as it is the case in the West. We were allowed to send students out of class, assign physical tasks for punishment (mine once cleaned the toilets) and the like. If the poor kid chose to go and tell the mamas and papas at home that the teacher had been unfair, they probably just got a slap as a bonus and that was the end of it - some parents begged the teachers to be more severe and please please beat the kids because "he only ever understands that language". It happened in my class once that an angry father marched into the lesson, took his son in front of the class and started slapping him from both sides. As I said in my last blog, in such a different culture you learn not to be shocked.

In the present system in Estonia, we cannot make a student repeat the class, even if he has failed all the subjects, without the approval of the parents. At WACA, if a kid's general grade average was less than 50% he automatically had to repeat the class. Repeating the class was considered a privilege and every child was allowed to repeat a class only once during his years in our school. For example, if he repeated Grade 8 once and now in Grade 10 his average was again under 50%, he had to leave our school. And if a child's general average was less than 40% he had to leave right away. A blissful arrangement for teachers, I would say.

Yeah, sometimes I do miss Senegal.