Schools in Moldova are woefully ill-equipped. Many schools do not even possess a ball for sporting activities.

Children are generally very fit, especially in the villages, as they have to fetch water from the well several times a day and work in the fields. Although many of the schools do not possess a ball they do have climbing equipment left from the Soviet times which seem perilously dangerous, being several metres high with no safety matting etc in case a child falls. The lack of any safety must encourage the children to hold on that little bit harder.

Children in schools generally behave extremely well, standing when an adult enters or leaves the classroom.

Teaching methods seem to be fairly old fashioned and children don't start school until the age of 7. Many schools have no science laboratory even if they have the equivalent of a 6^th form. Those which do have scientific equipment, it is generally old and we have seen some chemicals with a "use by date" of 1965!

The schools in the villages tend to have even less facilities than those in the city and at one school we visited they were studying computer programming and had arranged an outing for those students to visit another school who actually had a computer. They were doing computer programming having never actually seen a computer, let alone touch one.

We support schools in various ways by providing books, pens etc, financial support, used computers and sports equipment including footballs etc.

When in Moldova in September I came across a young girl who had been to University, could speak English, French, Russian and Romanian but had run out of money to continue her studies and therefore had no option but to return to her village to work in the fields for a matter of pennies each day.

Why not look at a question paper used in a recent English class in a Moldovan school to see if you know the answers by clicking here.