ONE STEP CLOSER - BUT HOW FAR? - Norwegian Refugee Council

274.3 TEP revisitedIn Kirundo and Myuinga the location of TEP schools/classes are either at a certain distancefrom the nearest regular school, or some are located within or adjacent to the school. Theabolition of the school fees has affected TEP as it is now more difficult to recruit enoughchildren to some of the TEP classes. NRC plans to downsize considerably in Muyinga for thenext school year.TEP teachers claim they work more and get less paid than their colleagues in regular.According to the pedagogical advisers (encadreurs), many have left for better paid jobs, andthose who stay on are looking for better opportunities. The problem is that the majority of theTEP teachers are not formally qualified and not on the government payroll. The educationadvisors seriously doubt whether the Government will ever take them on. The reason is thatthere are a number of qualified teachers who are jobless who will be accepted first. This ismainly a problem in Muyinga and Kirundo. Most of the teachers in Makamba are qualified.Even though many TEP teachers consider leaving the programme, the pedagogical advisersagree that the situation is not very different from what it was like in 2002. By and large theTEP students are doing better than their colleagues in regular schools. We shall return to morespecifics about this aspect later.Today the pedagogical advisers are the main responsible for the selection of the children.The number of TEP students in a class has been increased to 35 as of this year.For a short period, the pedagogical advisers in Muyinga spent the weekdays in the fieldmonitoring and supervising the TEP schools, and returned to the field office on Fridays. Nowthey are back to the old system of going and coming every day. This seriously affects theirefficiency, as they are only able to leave the office at 9 in the morning due to securityregulations. It means that the remote schools do not get as frequent follow-up as those whoare more centrally located.In some areas NRC has handed over former TEP schools to the regular school system.4.4 Transition from TEP to regular school4.4.1 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)Demers reports that it has been a recurrent problem to get a MoU regarding TEP signed atnational level. The MoU for TEP in Kirundo was specifically drawn up for that year’s projectactivities. As only Kirundo was mentioned as the area of implementation of the agreement,the automatic extension of the programme to other provinces was blocked. 46 A similaragreement was agreed upon with the provincial authorities in Muyinga. Integration of46 Demers, E.: TEP Burundi History and Analysis. 2004.Educare Eva M. Johannessen