Understanding the learning groups' context at the VTC

On Thursday the 15th October, 2009, we had a short meeting with Otim who is the principal of the centre. He had just returned from a 10 days leave. These meetings were aimed at helping me understand the context of how the learning groups have been going on as well as learning about how the principal would like me to help during my stay at the VTC.

Question 1 to Otim: have you drawn any plan in preparation of how we are going to work together?
He informed me that he did not have any plan and was waiting for me so that we draw the plan together. We agreed that we are going to do that with all the other participants who are interested in this process.

Question 2 to Otim: What would like me to help in at the NPAYVTC towards SCL?
He mentioned that they needed “redirection” and gave an example of the blogs. He mentioned that some teachers have been opening their blogs daily (gave an example of Clara and Amuge among others) while the others lost their passwords. He also mentioned that meetings/learning group meetings of the three major sections (carpentry & joinery, building & construction and Tailoring, tie &dying) were going on independent of each other. The meeting which was scheduled for all the different groups did not take place last month. He also reported that most of the instructors were ding most of the work as individuals independent of their groups.
Meeting with Otim on 16th October, 2009
In a dialogue with him, I raised a question as “what did you mean by ‘redirection’ in relation to what you would like me to help in towards SCL?
He responded that he meant;

1. 
   Opening of their blogs
2. Getting more information about what SCL/ other sources of information. I suggested related to this that this would be done by discussing with the students about what they may be interested in learning/ improving of their practice
3. Documentation of practice; how can we be able to receive feedback about what we write about our practice? Some of the ways he suggested were the “blogs” and “logs” We discussed that it would be good if the ways of documenting practice is discussed with all the other participants who would like to be documenting their practice throughout this period of our collaboration.

We also discussed about the upcoming meetings and agreed that other administrative members of the organization like the Deputy Principal, secretary and bursar be invited to attend and be a part of our discussions. This will help us to be informed of their interests and may also choose to be a part of what will be going on at the VTC during this period. A meeting with the Deputy Principal was yet to be held since he was in class during the time and was travelling to Juba over the weekend.
A day for the meeting with all the willing participants was yet to be set by the principal after the discussion with the Deputy Principal.