Conflict negatively affects children's education
The goalposts went a long time ago...
And tree planting... well, that's something they just don't do at Olmotnyl primary school. There's no point. The passing elephants tend to break and snap most anything that is at right angles to the ground.The school even had to be rebuilt in brick because the elephants used to rub their rough hides on the side of the old wooden building, causing it to become misshapen and unstable.
Avoiding the giants at home time
To many of us, it could be perceived as fun living next door to elephants. In reality it can be a nightmare.
Many children in this area close to the forest are being kept at home by their parents for fear that their child may stumble across one of the giant beasts. Early in 2003 that nightmare turned into reality as a young girl was killed on her way home from school.
Noah also tells the story of another more fortunate student, who, after being thrown up in the air by an elephant, landed some metres away and lost her scarf in the process. The elephant, acting more by smell than sight went over to the scarf and trampled it into the ground, while the young girl escaped.
Children's education is sufferingWith parents keeping their children at home, or at the very least, making them go in at 10am and come home at 4pm (this means their kids avoid the dawn-dusk periods when elephants make their way into or out of the forest) - their education is suffering.
The result, as a whole, is that Olmotnyl has the poorest performing primary school in the district, with only two students graduating to higher education in the nearby towns in recent years.
As one teacher put it - "When you try to give a simple exam on something taught yesterday, you cannot do a test the next day, but over several days, when all the students have caught up."
