By Ousmane Coulibaly, Operations Manager

As one of my former professors —Pr Ibrahim Sagayar — said: “A teacher or a student without a textbook is like a soldier on the battlefield without a weapon”. Yet all too often in Mali, teachers and students are not armed with textbooks.

I recently discussed this problem with two of our partner principals — the principal of Sue Chung Chiu Middle School of Simidji, Mr. Essai Mikoro and the principal of Little Heroes Academy I Middle School of Mana, Mlle. Djenebou Niama Coulibaly.

Both principals stressed that textbooks help teachers truly deliver results for their students. As Principal Mikoro put it: "The textbook allows the teacher to prepare his lessons well. With the textbook the teacher can easily teach and explain his lessons by saving time. For example, instead of copying everything on the board, if the students already have the textbooks, the teacher just gives them the number of the page and they can do the research by themselves…So the textbooks allow students to work at home and do research for themselves”.

The principals also pointed out that the textbooks allow teachers not only to train the students, but also to train themselves. Teachers always need textbooks because without the textbooks, they have to create each lesson from scratch. The textbooks guide and help a lot for the preparation of the lessons.

Principal Coulibaly stressed that textbooks allow teachers to save time. She said, “In order for a teacher to make a good performance in schools, he needs not only to have textbooks for himself, but also for his students. When the students have the textbooks, it makes the teacher's job easier. For example, if a teacher doesn’t have a textbook, he is obliged to copy down the whole text on the board, and in that case, he wastes not only his time, but also his energy. It's not easy without the textbooks… This is why, I am very happy that Mali Rising delivered us these 200 textbooks and I hope that the partnership will remain between us”.

The supply of textbooks in schools helps teachers a lot in achieving their goals with their students. This is why the delivery of textbooks by Mali Rising is always so greatly appreciated by the students and teachers. I send a special thank you to the donors who sponsored textbooks during last year’s Gift of Education giving event, because they make the book deliveries possible!

Want to donate a textbook or two? Click here to make it happen!