Guess what is my biggest blunder of the day? As I was ready to snap a picture, the camera prompted no memory card. FML! So today's entry which I have pictured jammed with photographs and video clips will just be filled with words. Anyway, today is a Canteen Day or Entrepreneur Day as it is officially called today. I was asked yesterday what teachers have got to do with a canteen day and the answer is "Everything". We have to buy stuff, prepare stuff and the place to sell them, selling and at the end clean up. I do not like a canteen day due to these reasons.
One of the objectives is supposedly to expose students to buying and selling- as if they have never bought anything from anywhere! Besides, the selling is done by the teachers, so where does the objective really lie? Real money is not even used on a canteen day.
The slogan of a canteen day is donate some when you buy. It goes beyond donating though, first and foremost because each student was obliged to buy 10 bucks worth of coupon. For a student whose father's monthly income is only 500 bucks, do you think he is willing to donate that much? So with that assumption, 6 out of 31 coupons allocated for my class were not sold and 4 students bought 2 sets because they are taking their younger brother or sister with them today. Students were even asked to donate some raw materials like onions, garlic, sauce, ketchup, vermicelli, potatoes, cooking oil and even sausages and chicken nuggets. And is it in the name of donating that the price of goods sold is 20 to 40 cents higher than its usual price? Or, is it because to make as much profit from the small volume of goods sold? This is why teachers cannot be the sellers. We do not buy in bulk and we do not have the appropriate equipments or utensils to prepare these goods for sale. The most suitable for teachers to sell are fruits, cold drinks, corn on the cob/ roasted maize, and some confectionery- all that are easy to prepare and would give good sales volume. The others should be opened to parents who have the means to run a a food stand, or they could plan amongst them on how to run the food stands. Now that is donation. Besides, from that 10 bucks, the smallest amount is 50cents. We can hypothesize that price will hike up by 50cents. Expensive! The students have to think twice to even buy candy.
I was really dissatisfied with the toys sold- all are useless and noneducational, and most inappropriate is that they were expensive. A few toys were sold at 10 bucks a piece. An airplane DIY kit is o.k, but a plastic helicopter that we can spin its rotor but do not fly, and party poppers for instance are total rip offs! Students still buy them and then they don't have coupons left to buy food.
Some food were not sold at appropriate time. Ice cream has been sold very early in the morning and when the day had become truly hot, no more fun choices left. So as the more appropriate food for breakfast only opened for business as early as 9.00am while junk food stand selling instant noodles in a cup had started business almost 2 hours earlier. When it was almost afternoon, most things were already sold out but people still have some coupons left. Not much to choose from and 10 bucks is a lot of money to be spent on food in one morning.
We waited at the food stand from 8.00am, closed it at about 12.30 in the afternoon and went home at about 1.30pm. We just took brief time off in the staff room once in a while and the rest of the hours slaving ourselves under the sun. This is more than just a donation.
What did I buy with my 10 bucks:
Juicy burger- 3.00
Laksa- 2.50
Pudding- 1.5
Keropok lekor- 1.50
Iced drink- 1.00
Sweets- 0.50
One of the objectives is supposedly to expose students to buying and selling- as if they have never bought anything from anywhere! Besides, the selling is done by the teachers, so where does the objective really lie? Real money is not even used on a canteen day.
The slogan of a canteen day is donate some when you buy. It goes beyond donating though, first and foremost because each student was obliged to buy 10 bucks worth of coupon. For a student whose father's monthly income is only 500 bucks, do you think he is willing to donate that much? So with that assumption, 6 out of 31 coupons allocated for my class were not sold and 4 students bought 2 sets because they are taking their younger brother or sister with them today. Students were even asked to donate some raw materials like onions, garlic, sauce, ketchup, vermicelli, potatoes, cooking oil and even sausages and chicken nuggets. And is it in the name of donating that the price of goods sold is 20 to 40 cents higher than its usual price? Or, is it because to make as much profit from the small volume of goods sold? This is why teachers cannot be the sellers. We do not buy in bulk and we do not have the appropriate equipments or utensils to prepare these goods for sale. The most suitable for teachers to sell are fruits, cold drinks, corn on the cob/ roasted maize, and some confectionery- all that are easy to prepare and would give good sales volume. The others should be opened to parents who have the means to run a a food stand, or they could plan amongst them on how to run the food stands. Now that is donation. Besides, from that 10 bucks, the smallest amount is 50cents. We can hypothesize that price will hike up by 50cents. Expensive! The students have to think twice to even buy candy.
I was really dissatisfied with the toys sold- all are useless and noneducational, and most inappropriate is that they were expensive. A few toys were sold at 10 bucks a piece. An airplane DIY kit is o.k, but a plastic helicopter that we can spin its rotor but do not fly, and party poppers for instance are total rip offs! Students still buy them and then they don't have coupons left to buy food.
Some food were not sold at appropriate time. Ice cream has been sold very early in the morning and when the day had become truly hot, no more fun choices left. So as the more appropriate food for breakfast only opened for business as early as 9.00am while junk food stand selling instant noodles in a cup had started business almost 2 hours earlier. When it was almost afternoon, most things were already sold out but people still have some coupons left. Not much to choose from and 10 bucks is a lot of money to be spent on food in one morning.
We waited at the food stand from 8.00am, closed it at about 12.30 in the afternoon and went home at about 1.30pm. We just took brief time off in the staff room once in a while and the rest of the hours slaving ourselves under the sun. This is more than just a donation.
What did I buy with my 10 bucks:
Juicy burger- 3.00
Laksa- 2.50
Pudding- 1.5
Keropok lekor- 1.50
Iced drink- 1.00
Sweets- 0.50