Day 1

I sit waiting in the reception area for about one and a half hours with ten other people.

I'm impressed with the stately architecture - steel and glass building, light, airy and well-appointed interior. My wonder is increased when I learn that it's a government school providing completely free secondary education. Nothing like my government schools back home.

I watch the kids loitering about the school compound and scampering down the hallways at 8am in the morning.

Some of them are wearing black T-shirts inscribed with a farewell message - a fourteen year old schoolmate killed himself last week.

Teachers walk hurriedly past reception without bothering to stop and ask what eleven new faces are doing sat around on their haunches early in the morning.

Finally, at about 8.45am, the bustle quiets down considerably - it seems the school day has finally started.

I continue chatting with my ten colleagues about the odd fact that we have been kept waiting for so long without having anyone attend to us.

Finally, the teachers begin to surface in trickles to collect us one by one. Most of them had forgotten that they were supposed to be expecting us.

I'm briefed on the way the school operates and allocated to a teacher for the day.

I sit in on my first class. My main duty is to assist the teacher in explaining to students on a one-to-one basis any concepts they may be struggling to understand. It turns out nearly the whole class is struggling. I am happy to help, but the students are not as happy to learn.

The kids are working on computers, an approach which is meant to enhance their learning experience. Unfortunately most of them do not get the point. They're more interested in computer games than in computer math lesons.

The teacher moves round the room to check on what the students are doing, but they've perfected the art of switching swiftly between windows as soon as they see him approaching. I also move around, but they can't be bothered to waste their skills on me, a mere teaching assistant.

A boy playing computer games shouts profanities across the room to another boy. The teacher in charge tells him to calm down but does not reprimand him for being inappropriate.

The kid I'm working with decides he's had enough of my ranting and moves off without warning to sit with another group. I doubt that he wrote down another word throughout the rest of the lesson.

I move off to work with another kid who touched my heart. His willigness to learn far surpassed his ability.

I expend considerable energy going over mathematical concepts with the new kid. By the end of the lesson, I am famished and desperate for a break. Thank God it's lunch time.

I have a break-time discussion with one of my colleagues who is with another teacher. Her experiences were not much different from mine. She's grateful her daughter does not attend this school.

End of break. Time for another class. This time it's a revision session for next week's math test.

It takes the class of forty about ten minutes to settle down. The teacher patiently waits for them to get quiet before starting the lesson. He hands out past question booklets to the whole class and gives them thirty minutes to attempt the seven questions in silence.

I study the test paper. I must have been taught most of the topics covered before I ever dreamed of going to secondary school.

The class never stays silent for more than five minutes at a stretch. The kids generally ignore the mock test and spend the time poking fun at each other. The teacher orders the class to keep quiet at least five times during the thirty-minute test period.

The test is over. I move round to have a peek into what the students have written. Most of them have not gotten beyond Question 3.

The teacher decides to spend the remaining hour of the lesson working out the test answers with the class. It takes forever to get them to quiet down enough to listen. I lose count of the number of times the teacher calmly orders them to keep quiet. He cannot shout on them talk less of beat them. It's against the law.

I walk round trying to help while the teacher is explaining. Only one kid is interested enough to ask for my help. Not that the others don't need any help; they just can't be bothered.

The teacher finally tires of telling the kids to keep quiet and tells them as much. He announces that he is fed up with trying to teach a bunch of people who don't want to learn. He tells the kids he will only continue teaching them out of respect for their parents and out of the responsibility he carries as their teacher.

The kids simply cannot stop making a din. Not to lose his head, the teacher finally gives up talking and takes to just writing step-by-step solutions on the high-tech projector board for the students to copy. The students do not write after him. They keep talking amongst themselves.

Time finally runs out. The school day's over. The teacher frees everyone to go home with the exception of about seven students. He asks them if they know why they're waiting. Most of them have an idea: noisemaking and class disruption charges.

The teacher desperately begs them to behave and listen in class so they can get their grades up and pass their exams. This time they keep quiet and seem to listen. The teacher lets them off a couple of minutes later.

I help the teacher with tidying up the room. He lets out his frustration with his job to me, saying his job description fits that of a policeman rather than a teacher. He's thankful that he's on a temporary two-year placement; he can't wait to quit and move on to something else.

Before he even says a word of all that to me, I have made up my mind: I cannot be a teacher in this country.