Page 318 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (IV)_Neat

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GIRLS' SCHOOLS

(Report by Mrs. C. D. Bclgravc, Directress of Schools.)
During the year a large new school was built, with living quarters above for foreign staff,
every teacher having a room, with a bathroom shared between two rooms. It included a central
sitting room, dining room and kitchen, a washing room and an ironing room, a hot water system,
also a large verandah along its full length. The school is on a large piece of ground which was a pait
of the old Municipal Garden. There is suflicicnl room to make a garden which is being done.
It is not an additional school, but is in place of the old Zahra school which was housed in a very
old fashioned building hired for the purpose. The new school however is larger and can accommodate
more classes.

During the second term of the year a Secondary Class was started for u girls. This is held in
a room in the new school. It is hoped that at some not too distant date it will be possible to have
a Secondary School for girls, but there arc still not very many parents who would allow their daughters
to attend one, and the cost of suitable staff would be out of all proportion to the numbers benefiting
by it. The marriage age in Bahrain is still much lower than in western countries and even if the girls
arc not to be married at once many of the more old fashioned parents withdraw them when they reach
the age of fifteen or thereabouts as they consider them too old to go about. The result of this is that
there is a higher percentage of junior students in the Girls’ schools than in the boys’ schools and a
comparatively small number take their school leaving certificates.

All the schools arc filled to capacity, in fact it might be said they are too full, but it is hard to
refuse admittance to so many of the would-be students who apply. As it is, in spite of some of the
very large classes, we have to have a waiting list. Staff is one of our problems, we have one extra
foreign teacher this year, and five locally recruited foreigners, who arc not up to our foreign teachers’
standard.

It is still difficult to stimulate the interest of some of the local teachers in teaching and many
of them seem to look upon it as a task to be got through in a certain number of staled hours after
which they need take no further interest till next morning. Although there are plenty of books on
all subjects written in Arabic most of them do not like reading. I have had it said to me when I have
suggested to one of the teachers that she might read something she was teaching " I do not like reading
and why should I read out of school ? " When teaching they show a deplorable tendency to stick
to the actual wording of the text books even for the younger classes and make no effort to make the
lesson interesting. There are of course notable exceptions and a few of them arc extremely good.
The girls' schools suffer in this respect in comparison with the boys who have about one third
of their teachers foreign where the girls have about one sixth. None of our local teachers have more
than a primary certificate. Another difficulty we have to contend with is the question of married
teachers who have young babies and therefore cannot be sent out all day to a school in another town.
Even if we were in a position to engage more foreign staff the transport problem would become
even more acute than it is now. We have more than 20 teachers to be moved daily to Rafaa, Hedd
and from Muharraq to Manamah all of which has to be done in one very old station wagon which con­
stantly breaks down and three Humber Hawks each seating four only and one of them having to be
used also by the Directress and the Inspectress when going from school to school. We are still only
able to teach English in the sixth form and the secondary class, as only two of our staff have a sufficient
knowledge of English to be able to leach it.

In the spring the British Council in Basrah arranged a short course on teaching English and
Mrs. Craig-Bennett gave several lessons in our schools.
Very little medical work was done during the year, owing to Sister Dowds having left, but all
the students were vaccinated. A Palestinian nurse from Beirut was engaged at the beginning of