Selection Process

                  

Memory has now completed the selection of the first 80 APU students!  360 girls wrote exams and 120 girls were interviewed.  Memory, her sister Lucy, and Monica (member of APU board),  interviewed the girls all week long.  The girls were asked questions about their family life, their experience in primary school and their hope for the future.  Memory selected some girls despite the fact that they failed the exam. She selected some girls because they showed potential but had parents who refused to pay for their tuition simply because they were girls.  The girls life circumstances weighed heavily in the selection process, as did their ‘openness' in answering questions.  Memory was looking for girls who are, in her words, ‘teachable'. She will be sending their pictures and write-ups in the next couple of weeks.  I've included some great photo's from the interview process as well as some updated photo's of the buildings.

 

Waiting for Interviews

The Interview process

Receiving Instructions

 

October 2007: Memory invigilated two sets of exams as more girls turned up than the number of exams she had prepared as a means of selecting the girls for APU.
Above: Awaiting interviews after completing the written exam at a primary school near the APU site which is near the NSALU Trading Center.

This is an excerpt from Henry's email:  

"Just briefly,  Memory has finally conducted the exam. There was a staggering 360 girls waiting for her at the exam centre by the time she arrived all scrambling  for 30 positions at APU. Girls poured in from all directions; some walked about 15km; some were ferried by bike by fathers, uncles, brothers, you name them, and some came cycling on their own and carrying a friend at the back of the bike. Memory had to split the group into two groups. She had to invigilate two exam sessions as the papers she prepared  fell short by 60 -  she acted fast by issuing plain papers and using the exam paper twice."

Excerpt from Memory's e-mail to Christie (Oct 24^th):

On Thursday Oct 18th, we had a good day though we came back home late. We started off around 8:30AM, yet the exams were supposed to start at 9:00. We were late because we hired two trucks to come the same day and get materials for the classblock and hostel and we could not leave before they came to get the material. So we arrived at Kabuthu Primary School where we were supposed to have our entrance exams. We chose this place because it is a well known school almost to everyone.  I was amazed to see the number of girls who managed to come. Girls were everywhere and they just reminded me about the meetings I used to have with the people during the famine. I almost cried that all these girls are fighting for their voices. They came early in the morning but never gave up. I greeted them and I gave papers to one girl from each school. We had girls from 34 primary schools and 360 girls in total.  I tell you it was hard. We were given a classroom that managed to hold only 70 girls at once. We had some teachers from Kabuthu who wanted to help invigilate the exams. I refused them because they wanted to be paid at the end of the invigilation. At the same time I did not want their help because I was not trusting them to do a good job! They were going to be biased in the sense that they would want their girls from their school to pass and let other girls from other schools fail. We had five turns and these exams took the whole day. Though we were tired, I was happy and proud of myself that there was no cheating among the girls. The last group started their paper around 4:30