Making the Best the Worst
A Short Story
By Mezemir Girma
We exchange short emails when the need arises. I know
why things were getting busy by her side. But at this time she emails me on
average once a week. She was one of my students of English literature at Emperor
Minelik II University. After her graduation, she chose me as a co-advisor for
her research on African storybook translations into Amharic.
The pace time flies! It was in those days of Facebook
and Twitter. Now all seems history. Only Gmail is left among all those. Glad
that only work emails are what I receive day by day instead of junk. It is a
good initiative that our newly formed regional government took. I taught Yemariam-Work
when Prime Minister Abiy fought the war with the TPLF. After five years now, he
has established the East African Unity Government (EAUG) adopting a new
constitution. The national reconciliation in Ethiopia, the unity with Eritrea,
Somalia, Djibouti and South Sudan, among others gave Abiy the name Mandela. The
EAUG seems a promising start to unite Africa. And the rotating co-president
position they introduced to accommodate all the former countries that merged to
the unity government looks answering questions related to suspicion and marginalization.
I just met my former student and advisee who graduated
in M.A. in Literature from the University of South Africa. She came here to sit
for a test and to get interviewed for the lecturer position we advertised. How
she is going a long way to compensate for what she lost in her own time! I met
her and took her home where we talked.
I remembered the time I started paying special
attention to her. She came to me as I sat administering my own exam. I thought
she had a question or so. Would this story of finishing exams in half an hour
when we give English as a common course repeat itself? One of the reasons I
disagree with the conduct of students from the cities.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“I’’m done,” she replied her neck tense.
“You haven’t even used a quarter of the time!” I
stared at her in astonishment.
“But I did what I know.”
I refused to take the paper and took her at the door and
started talking halfheartedly because I was still gazing inside scanning the
movement of the students.
“Please tell me. Are you sick?”
“No teacher. I read as much as I could and tried to
answer what I know,” she started arguing stretching her hands out respectfully
to give me the paper and to convince me and run to where she would go.
I took the paper hesitantly and started checking the
answers she gave. “But look at this and how you skipped the lines. This one
doesn’t even seem the answer,” I challenged her.
“Can I go now?” asked she.
“What do you mean? I’m talking to you. You are here to
learn. Do you have an appointment with your boyfriend?” I went a step further. I
had one of the boys who walked with her in mind. I feared she suspected that
too.
“It is not about that.”
“What is it then? After the exam, come to my office
and talk to me about this.”
“But could you make it another day? Is it something to
talk about?”
“Yes, if not, you know the campus policy. Writing such
silly answers is a breach of the code of conduct. I will not mark this paper.
It will be submitted to the English Department.”
“Please let me come tomorrow morning?” she implored.
I agreed and she left.
Who believes that girl straitened up this much and ended
up a graduate from a university in South Africa? Remembering her story even
makes me laugh. I truly admire her. She looks very beautiful had it not been
for her short stature. Beauty in our standard seems the face though. The rest
seems to be compensated by mutual understanding. You understand one another
once you love. I don’t know if she loved yet. How time flies.
It was right after the exam that I headed to the
registrar office. There I met the Indian professor, Dr. Sharma. He was the
university registrar. I asked him to show me the records of second year English
majors. He gave me and I saw Yemariam-Work’s. Her high school transcript is
good. Even the college entrance exam result is wonderful. She could have joined
the college of Law with that result. I remember she spoke at the welcoming
ceremony how she loved literature, but her performance keeps deteriorating that
much. How do we bear it to tolerate this! The gifted ones among the multitude
of weak students don’t exploit their potential. Only for her interest, I
planned to help her. Since she is a little past midway, she may improve and
even get employed as a graduate assistant here at the university. She could be
an asset. While many a country man and woman teach English, this young mind
from Addis could do well.
“Mrs Gebaynesh, why is it that you asked me for their documentation?”
asked me Dr. Sharma with his funny Indian accent standing up from his
workstation where he buried his face. Everyone here keeps judging him for his
accent while theirs is far more unintelligible. How we judge! I did my little
judgement in my mind and responded, “You know, Sir,” I started as I knew how
that is a better form of address in India. “There are some issues with one
student. I couldn’t straiten her up. She is from Addis Ababa and her English
is excellent outsmarting even us teacher. When I see her past score in the
records, it seems surprising to me. It is a total opposite of her current performance. This case is not specific to her. Most of the girls from Addis share
this fate.”
The Indian professor nodded and invited me for tea at
the staff lounge. People consider him a rather kindly Indian at least seeing
the Indians working here. Sometimes he treats you hot drinks at the lounge
which he prefers to call the canteen. We headed to the lounge and ordered in
Amharic.
“Hulet buna” ordered him the waitress.
“Eshi” she responded and brought us two cups of coffee.
After I told him what happens during exams and the
overall low performance of those who would otherwise be the brightest ones, Dr.
Sharma narrated to me the nature of education in India. He told me how females
are the brightest students in his country. I understood bearing in mind how
females are expected to pay dowry. I know India and their culture because I did
my Masters’ at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hydrabad. Why do
I let myself nostalgic in my own time!
“Most of the college girls do not have boyfriends in
my state India. There is no premarital sex. They are so much focused.”
I interrupted Dr. Sharma “Sir, couldn’t we balance
both education and love?”
“You know, you can’t do both at a time. And what is
the purpose of tasting that boy, this boy!” he stared.
He was unshakable because he was a firm believer of
the Indian system. Be it cast, education, government, he appreciates everything
the Indian founding fathers gave the generation.
“I kept telling you that everything you import from
America keeps ruining your nation. Limit your children’s access to American
movies. You saw how their politics was about to damage your country during the
former president Biden. I think you are learning how to make your country
safely away from American influence. If not, they will use you like toilet
paper and throw you as they did in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” argued the professor
straitening the horns of his mustache as his British colonizers did.
Does he know how Ethiopia is left a graveyard. A
graveyard whose citizens’ hearts flew to the U.S. and only their remains are
left here.
The professor encouraged me to keep doing the action
research I told him about.
We were in the second round of coffee when we started
talking about that time. It was me who raised it. Yemariam-Work seems to regret
the time she wasted at the university here.
I asked her what she did afterwards. I advised her to
work hard and focus on her lessons while she had the potential. As it was incorrigible,
our efforts failed us. I remembered how the English Department called us
Department Council members who are the representatives of Linguistics, Literature, TEFL and Journalism to his office. He informed us that the
university permitted the department to hire a female graduate from its own
students. I strongly opposed that no one was fit for that. He proposed
Yemariam-Work, but I kept insisting that she was lazy and careless. He tried to
convince me.
“I heard that her English is excellent even if I
didn’t teach her.”
“I know that, but language by itself does nothing if
you don’t make use of it! If she doesn’t read books and take notes, how could
she teach?”
“If you don’t accept it, I report that the graduates
lose the opportunity.”
No one sat for a test and the decision was binding. It
was not the department head alone, but we all teachers regret that our students
didn’t use the opportunity.
While we drank coffee I told her what the department
head said about love and education. He compared the American style with ours.
He knows it because he studied there. He believes that American students know
and practice love starting form middle school and come to college with confidence
and love wouldn’t be a trouble at all. “But look at me. I avoided love my whole
age and I’m asking girls who would be my age for marriage. This hampers creativity
and divides one’s attention,” he lamented.
“Mrs Gebeyanesh. Let me tell you my view. I think it
is not love. Just to tell you my case, I think it is how the educational system
is designed. If it were love, almost all students at the university had sexual
partners,” she started trying to show me an angle I didn’t consider for many
years.
“What is it then?”
“The background we came from is different from those
who came from rural areas. I just told you how love is not the major factor. It
is the educational system.”
“How?”
“If you take my case, when I was four years old I
joined a kindergarten. It was a difficult time I spend at the kindergarten. I
go to a place that was far from home past the traffic congestion and haste.”
“I see.”
“Yes, you know. For three years I did laborious tasks
at the kindergarten depending my days with copying from the board and doing
repeated drills.”
“Wasn’t that good to prepare you for school then?”
“It may be to a degree. But the handling was not
correct. The disadvantages outweigh,” she lamented miserably.
“What
disadvantages? Is it that much problematic?”
“There are a number of problems and it is a vicious circle. I don’t know if it can be corrected at all. No body knows such root
causes. When I graduated from Kindergarten, I wished I could get respite from
that hard work and got time to enjoy my childhood. But that was only wish.”
“Was there any such bitterness? Did your friends share
it?”
“Sure! I think so. Primary level was more painful than
that. We took the subjects both in Amharic and in English. Private schools
taught more than a dozen subjects to outsmart the public ones and to be chosen
by parents.”
“Don’t the authorities know this?”
“No body cares. Even our parents don’t care as long as
we learn to speak in English.”
“Why do they teach you the same subject in English and
Amharic?”
“You know the policy is that students learn in their mother-tongue. They know when the education office supervisors come and they
show our Amharic exercise books when they come.”
“Don’t your parents feel the burden?”
“They don’t care as long as we spend our days at
school. They say we learn the concept twice. Some say it is good to know
English. If it were learning the concept twice, we would know Math.”
“Don’t you?”
“We really don’t. Most of us.”
“Wouldn’t your parents ask the schools why?”
“Most of the parents don’t know because the schools
force Maths teachers to give us good results.”
“OK.”
“Most of us have tutors, yet we let them do our
assignments and home works. We hate to have other teachers at home while we are
bored with learning the whole day. It is that way we learned.”
“And the national exam?”
“It is as you know. Open to cheating. Schools
encourage it. They bribe the invigilators and students get the best results. We
join public universities and enjoy full scholarship. That may be what the
students from the rural areas enjoy the most. Love they may enjoy. But we enjoy
the relief.”
When you finish one life chapter, you forget the
other.
Fast forward to this young woman. She looks very
beautiful now because of the weather and the food I think. I couldn’t control
my laughter when I saw a video she posted on her timeline last week. Was it my
eyes? Not really! Gold Medalist! I think that high-school genius resurrected.
It reminisces me of those days we had spent at the
university as a teacher and student. She
would laugh if you ask her about me. How I make her laugh calling myself
English cheater. Isn’t the student also cheating? Yes! Did she score any good
grade except for creative writing which involved three fourth writing! If it is
on the spot writing, she is wonderful. Give her homework, assignment or quiz,
she is a failure. I bear it all in my heart until that day she made me very
mad.
Even I know I am a victim as I came from a small town.
The students at that small town were outsmarted by those from the countryside.
Those from the small towns outsmart the ones from the metropolis. As Ethiopians
study with those from developed countries, they achieve better grades. That
must be how this Ethiopian failure outsmarted those from other countries.
She presented a paper in the national symposium the
university hosted in June 2026. It was entitled “Students’ burden, tutorial
services and quality of education nexus in the private schools of Addis Ababa” on
the quality of English language teaching in private schools. The minister of
education was so touched by the issues raised and he chose her to be the chair
of primary quality of education in the unity government in their chat outside
the conference. She has the potential to change the education of those students
in the entire east African nation. Those urban
students who didn’t anticipate anything new at university and in the
life after should find schemes that make them eager to learn and achieve more.
The teaching positions should be competitive and teachers should be better than
their students. Who knows if this young scholar ascends in power and becomes Minister
of Education or even the co-president of her country Those future positions
could open the window to solve a multitude of problems among which the one she
identified came out as a tip of an iceberg.
