When teachers announce to their students that they are going to have a study tour, the news is always received with a lot of excitement.

To those who are in boarding schools, going for a study tour means breaking the hectic school routine and getting a chance to get out of the school environment. If adequate preparations are carried out before the tour is undertaken, learners are   able to develop a variety of skills.

Teachers should help students to set clear objectives to be achieved such that learners go out with a sense of purpose. Learners should be guided on how to prepare questionnaires that they can use to get the right information from the field and they should know the people that they should interview. It is also important for the teachers to equip participants with interviewing skills.

Learners should not think that it is a matter of going out there to have fun. They should realise that study tours are aimed at helping them to deepen their understanding of the aspects that are taught at school.  

For instance, if it is an Economics trip to the National Bank of Rwanda, learners should be able to get more information about topics like inflation and money and banking to widen their scope of understanding. The interviewees explain to them how they are able to control inflation and the other functions of the central bank. 

Field trips equip learners with note making skills. Each participant should have a note book and pen and teachers should guide them on how to make notes during the excursion.  

When students make their own notes, they can easily remember what they wrote about. Therefore, they should not go empty handed.

Many learners do not know how to write reports and this can be a good opportunity for them to learn. They should not go back to school and just narrate stories to their peers about the good times that they had in the field. They should be encouraged to work in groups and compile their findings and each group should be asked to present their reports to the class.

Many students do not consider their teachers as a source of inspiration because they believe that teaching is not as lucrative as the other professions like medicine, engineering, accountancy, law and journalism among others.

So, when they go for academic trips, they get a chance to interact with the people from the professions that they cherish and many of them get inspired to work towards achieving their career dreams. When we talk to them about certain prestigious professions like mass communication and law, they do not get inspired because they know that we are teachers but when they interact with lawyers and journalists in their fields of work, they get motivated to work hard. 

Those who might have been thinking that they will be able to realise their career dreams without working hard at school may get some useful tips from the professionals in the field.

Excursions also help learners develop their communication skills. When they are out there, they interact with various categories of people as they look for information and they learn how to communicate in various situations. If we only keep them at school, they may not be able to develop effective communication skills.

However, teachers should always monitor the learners closely whenever they take them out. Some of them utilise that chance to connive with some unscrupulous people in the field to get access to illicit items like marijuana and alcohol which they eventually smuggle into school. They should be checked thoroughly before entering school after the trips.

Academic trips should be encouraged in schools as long as adequate preparation is carried out and follow up activities are arranged to achieve the desired objectives.

The writer is a teacher for English Language and Literature