Teacher Housing -- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The education system in The Gambia is national.  Teachers can be posted anywhere around the country with housing usually included as part of the job. Some of the schools are near main roads and others are much farther in the bush. I recently went to two different schools in the Central River Region and saw what the disparity in housing can be like. The first school was about a 25 minute ride from the main road over bumpy dirt roads. The head teacher at the school was new and wanted to bring the state of the teacher housing to my attention in hopes that I could bring it to the attention of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education. Imagine being a new head teacher at a school and arriving to find that the head's housing looked like this:

He has to take money out of his limited salary to rent a room in the village.

The picture below is of the Deputy head's house which is obviously better than the head's home but still leaks heavily in the rainy season.

Now contrast this with the teacher housing in Illiasa. Granted it is not the Ritz but Iliasa is a few minutes from the main road and this housing is so much better than the housing for the village that was far from the road. The goats are just an added benefit.