I have just returned from two weeks teaching English to primary school teachers in Rwanda. This is for the second year running, but I found it much harder work this year: last year we taught only teachers of English, but this year it was all teachers following a decree this January that every subject was to be taught only in English.
I found that the standard in the class much more variable than it was for just the English teachers last year. It really is quite difficult to teach a lesson and address, at the same time, the needs of elementary English speakers whilst still engaging the attention of much more advanced candidates. I had forgotten just how hard work teaching is, and I am an unashamed advocate of streaming classes.
Rwanda has joined the East African Economic Community which is very much part of the English speaking world. In addition the government is very keen to promote the growth of information technology which perceived as being an English led sector.
Undoubtedly, part of the rationale for promoting English is political. French was the second language and many Rwandans blame French intervention and support for the former regime as being responsible for prolonging the genocide of 1994 which saw 1 million killed in 100 days, and allowing so many its perpetrators to escape.
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My sojourn in Rwanda coincided with the monthly 'umuganda' Saturday when everyone from the president to the humblest citizen must perform half a day of service to the community. Accordingly, my colleagues and I assisted with the construction of a drainage channel for a hillside community. It was the sort of labour that would be undertaken almost exclusively by machines in this country, but in Rwanda many hands make light work.
I often get letters demanding the return of National Service and I am still hopeful that our next government may make a start at doing something of that sort. Most of us, however, have got away with it and won't be in the frame for any replacement national service that might be implemented in the future. For us, therefore, some form of 'umuganda' on the Rwandan model might be a useful option. If, for example, we all had to spend a Saturday morning picking up litter, some of us might drop less of it in the first place.
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Whilst I was away I received a couple of emails from people outraged that David Cameron had made clear his intention to protect the International Development Aid budget, notwithstanding the urgent priority to restrain government spending. "Doesn't he realise that charity begins a home?" they demanded to know.
I felt pretty self-righteous replying from Rwanda but sometimes you really have to spell it out. Yes, by its very nature charity has to begin at home. If it doesn't then it isn't charity. Charity is action that arises from a state of mind. The phrase was coined as a standing challenge to certain Victorian gentlemen who made much of their public generosity whilst subjecting their families and employees to tyranny and meanness. It was never a criticism of the widest distribution of one's charity. Charity is a virtue: it is indivisible; a charitable person is by nature charitable to everyone with whom he or she has dealings.
Second, by definition, governments, or any element of government spending, cannot be charitable. Individuals show charity by freely giving their time and substance without any expectation of a return. Governments have no substance of their own to give away; all that they possess belongs to the taxpayer from whom it has been collected using all the coercive power of the state. Governments must therefore spend every penny in the national interest with every expectation of a proper return.
The rationale for the foreign aid budget has to be that it is spent in our national interest and it is not charity in any sense.
Our world is riven with violence which arises from poverty and injustice, and this gives rise to enormous disruptive flows of refugees. If we can deal with some of these problems at source with sensible and effective expenditure, then we might make significant savings when having to deal with their expensive consequences.
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A letter in a free newspaper was recently drawn to my attention. The anonymous correspondent complained that he had never read or seen any report or account of any activity or mine anywhere ever!
I shall be charitable: perhaps he is suffering from memory loss. |
