Methods

The Christian Education Fund has two aims:

1. To promote Christian education in community schools in the Petauke area.
2. To aid, support and encourage more effective education in community schools in the Petauke area.

To fulfil these aims we are currently supporting 25 community schools around Petauke and Sinda (both of which are towns on the Great Eastern Road through Eastern Province).

Its methods for doing this are:

1. Providing materials for community schools. We concentrate on the basic essentials that these schools lack, such as blackboards, chalk, stationery, exercise books etc. We have also provided Bible-story books and some text books to schools.
2. Training teachers. Nearly all the teachers in our community schools had no training before we got involved. Training must be our most important function, as the ability of the teacher is far more important than the equipment available to the school. We run occasional conferences giving training in basic teaching skills and instructing the teachers in what a truly Christian education is. These conferences are announced over local radio and are open to any teachers who wish to attend; they are a great opportunity for bringing the gospel to these teachers. We also observe lessons in the schools and give the teachers feedback on their lessons to help them improve.
3. We need the teachers to take responsibility for their own development. Therefore we have set up a teacher-training library. The teachers are encouraged to use this to help improve their English, subject knowledge and teaching techniques. We have also enrolled all teachers on the Covenant College “Know Your Bible” correspondence course.
4. In addition, the teachers at Penje Penje, our priority school, have been given a number of books to help both their teaching and their spiritual growth, and have a reading scheme to follow.
5. Monitoring schools. Solomon Lungu, our travelling secretary, regularly visits schools to check that materials are being used properly, teachers are behaving as we would expect in a Christian school and there are no problems we need to respond to. His visits are also a great encouragement to the teachers, who work in very difficult circumstances.
6. Support for the teachers. The teachers receive a pittance for their difficult work. Therefore we try to encourage them by providing gifts such as clothes and Bibles. We also provided maize during the poor rainy season of 2005/6.

As has been mentioned, in addition to our general support of 25 schools, we have chosen one priority school. We hope to build this up into a model school to display good practice and its results to other schools. We would also like, as a long term project for the future, to have our own school, employing local Zambian teachers who would be trained by us. This school could then also act as a training-centre for other teachers.

Our effectiveness in all this work should be greatly helped by an experienced Christian teacher from the Netherlands moving to Covenant College to supervise the work on a full time basis.