German Church School, Addis Ababa

This is a summary report of the activities of German Church School for the year 1999/2000.

Statistics:
This year we have total of 960 students in the different programs of the school. Of these 568, are in the regular, 139 in the evening, 193 in the Saturday tutorial program, 41 in the German Church Vocational Training program an 19 in the extended fostership, that is in the tertiary level. 27 of these students are blind or visually impared students in our integrated education for the blind. On the other hand 24 girls are in the preparatory part of the german Church Vocational Training program whereby the 17 in the second year are expected to complete their studies in June this year.
Moreover, two among the 19 students in higher institutions and training programs will be gratuating in July.

Staff:
We altogether have 20 regular teachers that participate in teaching in the different units of the schools excluding three other teachers that teach on part-time basis and the instructors that are involved in the GCS-VT program. Of the five resource teachers we had in the school one of them left here as of January 2000 having secured a better job with Ethiopian National Association for the Blind (ENAB) and which of course has affected our work to a certain extent.

As far as the performance of the students is concernded, the first group of 28 students that for the first time sat for grade 8 national examination, all of them passed by obtaining a very good result, i.e. over 86% of them scored 90% and above.
On the other hand more than 50% of our students in the integrated education for the blind are rank students in their respective grade levels. This has been attained by the cumulative effort of the teachers as well as the relatively longer time they stay on the school compound and the access they have got to the school library.

As far as the qualification of teachers is concerned nine of the teachers are B.A/B.Sc. holders (includes two part-time teachers) one M.Sc., 2 diploma holders and 4 others have academic qualifications from 1st - 3rd year university. The other teachers who had short training or no pedagogical trainings have been put recently with ABC-Project of Education and Development for teachers in service training.

Other Services:
Students in the regular school as well as those in the Saturday program and the vocational training are beeing provided with bread and fruits every school days. In addition to this, they have got school uniforms and shoes for the academic year.

Teff and oil money was also given a week before Ethiopian Christmas.

Moreover, almost all students in the school have been included in the different fostership programs we have. For instance we at the moment have a total of 671 in the different fostership programs. Of these, 227 are with Kindernothilfe, 188 in Interpedia (Finland) and all the rest with the German Church forstership.
The provision of free medication to the students have continued coupled with teaching hygiene in every class as well as family life education to the adolescents.

Moreover, visual screening, eye examination and treatment has been done for students in the school at the beginning of this year and this was sponsored by the Christoffel Blinden Mission (CBM).

Furthermore, we have also given an emergency support, stationery, books and school uniform for 23 students in our school who have been victimized by the fire desaster which occured only a few hundred meters away from the German Church.

Outlook/Changes: