Summer classes were supposed to be you know places where the kids would spend their days safely. It is one way of parents making sure that their children don’t fall with the wrong crowd. Because with the months of vacation time and with the kids having nothing particular to do the possibility of their getting in trouble rises.
Sending the kids to summer classes was a matter of choice and had nothing to do with mainstream classes. Well until recently that was supposed to be the case. No more! This time parents having been told that their kids should join summer classes “…or else!” Or else they can’t go to the next level a right they have achieved during the academic year. What right do the private school authorities have to deny the kids that right? The move is controversial in that its intentions aren’t fully to help the kids. I mean no one can deny the kids would acquire knowledge during the couple of months. Of course, that depends on the ability of their tutors. You know these days with supposedly fake academic documents all over the place you are pardoned to have a slight percentage of pessimism.
Then there is this widespread talk of those with fake academic documents having dug their way deep into the educational system of the country. If the talk of the town is to be taken to the last semi colon and period, the problem is so acute whoever are responsible for ensuring fair play and fraud should act while there still is time. By the way, not sparingly, we used to hear some higher education students talking of instructors who say, “Now this isn’t about me teaching you. This is about all of us learning together. If such comments are made to build confidence among students that the instructor was just another man-in-the-street and no ‘special’ creature, nice and good. But the fact is that they will tell you such an instructor taught them nothing of significance only giving them tons of assignment to read and never discussing what they were instructed to read. Now like in almost everything there might be some exaggerations in such stories. But the very realization that there are such stories of whatever impact is scary enough. Now when you hear about these ‘fake documents’ stories you can’t help it but rerun all you’ve been hearing and try to make sense of it all.
Recently there was this news where some guys were caught teaching while they weren’t qualified to do so. They were sent to jail for five years.
One thing is not right. In some instances you don’t do things because you wish to do them but because you were practically arm-twisted. Already the complaints of exorbitant increases in school fees paying for summer classes are indeed tough to take.
It is like you have to buy someone you don’ need have something you don’t need. During the military regime there were these cooperative shops in almost all parts of this city. People got basic commodities in their residential areas. You know things like wheat, teff, sugar and the like. But the co-op shops were filled with all kinds of commodities. Most of them don’t interest the greater a part of the population so they stay on the shelves, but the kebele bigwigs do played it tough. Say you want to buy ten kilos of wheat and you are told to buy something like toilet paper. They appear at least thon you’d want.
In times when every birr and cent matters being forced to buy something you don’t want or something you don’t need really gets on your nerves. “I’m deep do in hell trying to keep the dishes to the family’s dinner table and this is what they do to me. Robbers!”
We were discussing this mobile banking scheme that the banks are pushing us to subscribe to. Yes that must be one of the unique features of modern banking. But then here is much skepticism because we aren’t’ that fully…of technology I mean sometimes the banking industry seem to grind to a stop because “there is no system…”
Confidence building isn’t an easy matter.
The big hitters are telling us to pay our monthly bills digitally. That of course goes a long way in saving you precious time. But then many are very skeptical and they want to have the receipts in their hands. Forget the confirmation text messages that you’ve paid. We, including this writer, would want the feeling of that hard evidence. It is not that we are thinking like the people of perhaps half a century or a century back. It isn’t that we haven’t been oriented enough to see the fact that digital payment and such are things the world would have to adapt to. Say elderly men and women without the slightest idea of the digital payment thing aren’t actually …about how to electronically pay bills. So is hard for them to be told they can pay digitally and no one would take hard cash.
Yes that’s not standing ovations stuff. No pats on the back for being so careful; in joining the digital world superhighway. Including there is so much scare narratives out there about the fully digital world being nothing about mankind falling under robot colonialism. Ha!
So speaking about summer classes while many parents are content that their children are in a seemingly safe environment the fact they have practically been forced to do it isn’t a light affair to take. I mean the entire family budget is practically out of orbit, the fees they ‘forcefully’ paid for summer classes were supposed to see them through the cloudy, rainy chilly winter months. Now that the wallet is thinner than it should have been at that time of the year how the hell are they going to balance their book! One thing is sure. It is not going to be one household where smiles would be in abundance.
“Do you know it has been almost four months since we bought fifty kilos of teff?
“So…”
“So! That’s what you can say? So!”
“What do you think we should do. “
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this question. Ok; Ok! I’ll calm down. We’ve to buy fifty kilos of teff tomorrow.”
“And from where do you think we get the money!”
Silence! Deadly silence, the most terrifying words in the dictionary. Of course, hubby knows she has reached her melting point and it is not going to be nice at all. “Look all I’m saying I paid all the money for the kids’ summer school!”
Beyond this point it’d be a “Trespassers would be prosecuted!” very private territory and we don’t have the green light to snoop any deeper. If summer schools are a must put them into the academic calendar and the Sene 30 school closure stuff we’ve lived with for decades would be history.
Expenses! Expenses! Expenses! The deeper they dig, the crueler it gets!
Ephrem Endale
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD 27 AUGUST 2023