The teachers amongst our sponsors will recognise the problems that arise when children starting primary school do not have the basic language and communication skills that will allow them to participate in the classroom and to benefit from the teaching. 
This led us to introduce a simple test at enrolment to give us a class of children of a similar ability. However, each year many more boys than girls passed the test and this caused an imbalance. In order to keep the numbers of boys and girls equal, we had to accept girls who were performing well behind the boys and, as they progressed through primary school, many of them fell further and further behind.
To address this, in 2012 we started an experimental pre-school, for girls only, at our Turkahan school. 
This has helped the girls considerably and in the latest enrolment we found that four out of the top five girls passing the entrance exam were from pre-school.
We managed to open a second pre-school at Mujehra but had insufficient funds to add one to all our schools. We received a grant of £5,000 from the Waterloo Foundation which has allowed us to open a third pre-school at Hasra. Click on the film link below to a short (5 minute) film showing the induction process and the first day for the girls.
Let us have any observations and please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested.
Robin Garland
Project Mala
01904 786880
www.projectmala.org.uk
email – [email protected]
