Do what ‘they’ want when ‘they’ are watching…

These words came out of my mouth today when talking to a deputy head teacher at a really low-performing government school in town:

You do what ‘they’ want you to do when ‘they’ come to observe your lessons. But when ‘they’ aren’t around, you do what is best for your pupils and to improve the performance of your school.

They being RTI (an NGO) and USAID – meddling with Ugandan schools and sadly making the performance gap so much wider between government and private schools. Fortunately the deputy agreed with me. Her reply:

That’s exactly what we decided to do! We now even have a separate lesson planning book to show them when they come, but we aren’t teaching the lessons in it. Only when they come to inspect us.