THE BEGINNING OF CLASSES AND AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES

We have spent the past few months engaging with various community stakeholders, recruiting students and creating parental support systems. With these preparatory steps complete, we distributed school supplies and uniforms to students to alleviate the financial burden such provisions would impose on parents. Each student is provided with notebooks, writing utensils, a geometry set, and a book bag. Additionally we also supplied boots and work overalls to be worn by students while participating in their practical lessons in the farm or in the chicken coop.

A regular school week consists of agricultural or poultry farming classes in the mornings, a lunch break and French literacy and mathematics classes in the afternoon. The agricultural and poultry farming classes comprise of a practical lessons in one half of the morning and complementary in-class instructions. Such a schedule allows students to retain the lessons they have learned by taking what is taught in the classroom and applying it in the field the same day. We have also taken another step towards an integrated education by aligning mathematical competencies with our agricultural education curriculum. For instance, students learn how to calculate areas of rectangles in the same period they are learning how to divide a farmland into rectangular plots. This coordination of competencies ensures that our classes have a natural flow and are application-based. We will continue to tailor our education to ensure that our students are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skillset.