Mother Tongue-based Literacy Programmes: Case Studies of Good ...

Thus, the book-fees for a child to pursue the whole Kam programme – excluding teachers’ aids - are 68.7yuan (US$8.81). 7Several factors should be taken into account when calculating the cost effectiveness of the materials.First, the materials are not quickly outdated and are durable enough to last over a period of years.Second, the materials have been tested and found effective, meaning that future Kam schools needonly reproduce more of the same if and when the programme expands. The number of students whowill use the materials over the 10-year period reduces the initial per capita cost of materials to a veryreasonable amount.Training and Equipping Kam TeachersIf the provision of a large quantity of Kam literature is one key to the success of the programme sofar, then a second key is surely the Kam teachers who have been selected and trained to teach theKam curriculum. Programme organizers estimate that prior to the start of the Kam/ Mandarin BilingualEducation Programme, fewer than 10 Kam adults possessed the reading and writing skills in Kam thatare required for teaching in a Kam language classroom.In January 2000, officials from the Rongjiang County Education Office interviewed 19 potential teachertraineesin Zaidang. Seven were selected for training. They were all mother tongue speakers of Kam andinhabitants of Zaidang. Their own schooling backgrounds varied, each having spent between 3 and12 years in the national education system. In March 2000, the seven trainees participated in a 4-weekworkshop for learning to read and write Kam. Four weeks was not enough for fluency, but laid a goodfoundation for Kam literacy upon which to build later.Thereafter, in August 2000, a further 3-week workshop in teaching methods was convened in Zaidang,attended by the same seven trainees as in March. Selection of four preschool teachers was thenannounced. Two were to serve in the upper community (Jiasuo), and two in the lower community(Zaidang). At each place, one teacher taught Preschool 1 (5-year-olds) and the other taught Preschool2 (6-year-olds). Classes began in September of 2000, using the same curriculum for 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds in the first year of the project. There were 16 or 17 children in each of the four classes. (Gearyand Pan, 2003, p. 282-283). A fifth teacher was employed to substitute for other teachers in the case ofenforced absences.How were these Kam teachers paid? Because of their educational backgrounds and the limited amountof training provided, the Kam teachers are not “qualified” in the same way as are the trained, certifiedteachers in the formal education system. A modest payment of about US$365 per year was allocated,though this was 67% more than salaries of the 5 temporary teachers at the primary school. That yearlyfigure has since been doubled due to the strong pressures on the Kam teachers to leave the villageand go to urban areas where they can make twice as much money in unskilled construction or factorywork.7 Based on personal communication from N. Geary in November 2006. The dollar figures are computed based onthe exchange rate of 7.8 yuan to 1 US dollar.[ 84 ]