Visit to schools

We have visited St. Peter's Primary (St. Mary's Largs partner) and Lunyangwa Girls School (St. Mark's Irvine partner).  Everyone was delighted to greet us.  Teachers here in Mzuzu have been praised for the good academic results recently.  Good results mean the pupils will have greater choice for secondary school.  It is very, very hot here so now I can see that pupils are happy to be in the cool classrooms.  Outside most classrooms at St. Peter's we can see the water buckets which are well used in this weather.  Classes in both schools still have a very high number of pupils.

 At Lunyangwa, I handed over the generous cheque (£700) from St. Mark's Primary, Irvine.  Lidia, the Head Teacher was delighted to receive it and a Board meeting will be called to discuss how this will be spent on assisting the school.  Recently the school has repaired several walls to make it safer for the pupils outside.  The Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher were very impressed to look at the beautiful drawings from P2/1.  These will be displayed in the school for everyone to look at.  They were also very interested to read the clippings about St. Mark's activities in the local press; loved the homemade Easter bonnets.  They thought the Scottish pupils seem to have a good variety of activities whereas a lot of education here in Malawi is discussion, talking and listening as well as memorising.  Some things however are similar eg. Sports Day.  During our visit we met Standard One outside with their teacher for an English lesson.