The Editor welcomes letters, by e-mail to ped@iop.org or by post to Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK. Alternative view of education in Zambia I have just read the 'On the Map' report of the International School of Lusaka with very mixed feelings (Physics Education, March 2001). I have recently spent some time in Zambia, in Lusaka, and share Sue Pears' love for the country and the Zambians. The ISL is indeed a good, prestigious school, similar to International Schools in many other countries. But, as in most other developing countries, there is enormous variation between the different types of schooling, and the ISL is at one end of the spectrum. Most schools in Zambia are less favoured.Zambia is a wonderful, beautiful country full of the most friendly and resourceful people I know. It is also a very poor country. It is a country of enormous contrasts and its schools reflect that variation. It has a tiny, affluent 'middle' class of professionals, politicians, businessmen, employees of international businesses and NGOs—nearly all paid from overseas budgets. It has an enormous majority of poor folk, cheerfully living in very basic conditions but sharing their lives in extended families without complaint.The government is virtually bankrupt, and consequently those paid by the government—teachers, police, nurses etc—get a pittance. The wage for a teacher in a typical school is £20 per month (compared to a typical teacher in the UK who gets 100 times more, about £2000 per month). The GNP in Zambia is about $1 per day per person, and this has to pay for all the schools, hospitals, police, and the civic infrastructure that we take so much for granted (the GNP in UK is about $60 per day per person). Consequently most state schools do not have resources; they have a classroom and a teacher but little else. What resources the school has will be paid for by the school fees that every child is charged. Because folk are so poor, the fees have to be very low and the resources bought are consequently minimal. Apparatus for physics lessons? Very rarely. Electricity, gas and water services to the labs? Sometimes. Physics textbooks? Very few, old and battered through much use.I visited the David Kuanda School in Lusaka, a high status technical school, and there met some very impressive teachers. Were they doing technical subjects like electronics and car maintenance? No, they could not afford to buy the required equipment, and thus did the academic subjects, physics, chemistry and maths etc, which were cheaper as they could be taught with 'chalk and talk'! Were their students bright, resourceful and keen to learn? They certainly were.Despite all these difficulties the teachers were seeking to teach, and help their students enjoy, the same physics that is common around the world—and prepare them for very similar exams at GCE and A-level, in English. If anyone would like to help a Zambian secondary school, perhaps by sending a set of physics texts no longer used here, or by providing some other resources, perhaps by forming a personal link with a school in Zambia, please contact me and I would be happy to help with arrangements. I could guarantee that you, and your students, would gain an enormous amount from such links—as well as making a real contribution to the development of a less favoured country. Brian E Woolnough Oxford University, UK brian.woolnough@edstud.ox.ac.uk Pedantry or compromise I write in response to S Wynchank's letter in the May issue entitled 'Grammar and Gender'. Many have been using 'They' as common-sex third-person pronoun for years, in order to avoid the irritating and clumsy 'Him or Her'.This commonsense compromise is logically compatible with the universal use of 'They' to include the singular... OF EITHER SEX!For example, in 'Those who ignore this instruction may lose their right to compensation.', both 'Those' and 'their' include the possibility of the singular, of either sex.On the other hand, in 'Anyone who ignores this instruction may lose their right to compensation.', the 'Anyone' implicitly includes more than one, and the 'their' also includes both plural and singular... of either sex.How otherwise avoid writing 'Those who ignore this instruction may lose their right to compensation; or, if the offender be singular, he or she may lose his or her right to compensation.'? Tim Watson PS: 'The Complete Plain Words' (Penguin, 1987) talks about this on page 118. In quoting Thackeray ('Nobody prevents you, do they?'), general acceptance of the 'Third Expedient' seems to be anticipated, though not at the time recommended. THE TIME HAS COME.
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Dec 30, 2023
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