A school to be believed in

Mrs. Moussa on the left with some of her staff members

Farhati Soulaimana Zarkaoui wants to care about people. ‘‘I want to become a doctor when I grow up,’’ she said. The 10 year old girl is in the fourth grade at Itsandra public school. The school is located in the north of Moroni, the capital city of Comoros and opened its doors in 1969 when the country was a French colony. The school consists of 10 classes from the maternal to the sixth grade. According to the director, Zainaba Moussa, 42, the maternal section which opened in 2011 recruits 3- 4 year old students from the village.

Abdullah Arafat, 32, likes her job. She works from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. She is graduated from the University of Comoros in 2008. She is the maternal school teacher and is in charge of 30 students aged 4-5 years. ‘‘As Arabic and French are in the syllabus, I teach them to read and write in the two languages,’’ she said. 

The old school building has 295 students with an average of 50 students per class for only five classrooms. Thus, each grade has class one week in the morning and another week in the afternoon following a rotating system determined by the secretary of Education. The staff members are only twelve: 11 teachers (8 women and 3 men) and a security agent. They are paid by the government except the security agent who gets his stipend from the community. Abdul-Aziz Amada, 29, has been hired as a security agent since 2012. He has a lot of work during the breaks and after class. ‘‘I have to take care of the kids during the breaks and make sure that they are safe when they cross the street to go back home,’’ he said.  

One of the maternal school classrooms

Soilihi Mohamed Cheikh is the former director of Itsandra Public School. He is disappointed that both the government and the community do not care enough about the public school. ‘‘Despite the poor infrastructures, our 6^th grade is among those which have the best score in the national level with almost 95% of students who succeeded in the national exam last year ’’ he said.

Since the 1970s, Itsandra public school had never been renovated by the Comorian government. Recently, some renovation projects were made possible through the partnership of some Comorian non-governmental organizations and the U.S. government. ‘‘Even if we have water, restrooms and electricity right now, we still need help in order to rebuild and renovate our village’s first public school,’’ said Mrs. Moussa.      

Chami Mouzawar

Contributing writer

September 2015/Update December 2019

P.S. Three years later some of the staff members retired and several renovation projects are still waiting potential partners.