O Ta Saeng School

We had a great opportunity to visit the school at O Ta Saeng. Since the commissioning of the school in August, the school has already started 4 classes - 2 x Grade 1 classes in the afternoon, and 1 x Grade 2 and 1 x Grade 3 in the morning. Each class takes about 35 students at the moment. It is expected that by the same time next year, the school will be full.

Two teachers were taking classes that morning. The Dy Principle of the school, Lene has been teaching for 0ver 10 years. She has Grade 9 + 1 year of teacher training. She lives about 5 km from school and rides a motorbike in daily. She shared that she was quite content biking the distance in to school, as there were now more students in school. Apparently last year, before the school was built, 2 children had fallen into the river on the way to school and drowned.

The other teacher Bomary, is younger, but with similar qualifications. She lives only about a km away. Both appear quite happy and well adjusted.


One of the difficulties they face is the shortage of resources. The children have textbooks issued by the government, but no exercise books and writing material. More about this later.