 |
 |
|
 |
||
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Picture Gallery | Donate | How Can You Help? | Forum | |||||||||
|
School Partnership Initiative. There are currently 55 UK schools drawn from Oxfordshire, Kent and Nottingham linked with 55 schools in the Fort Beaufort and King Williams Town Districts of the Eastern Cape and from the Grabouw and Cape Town Districts in the Western Cape. In the vast majority of cases the links are two way i.e. one UK school is partnered with one SA school. In two cases a three way link has been established. In these cases there are historical, educational and practical reasons for the establishment of these three way links. To give the partnerships a sense of formality (NB not legality) a MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING has been drafted for use by each school partnership. These can be amended by each partnership of schools to suit their individual arrangements. The 55 schools from the Fort Beaufort District chosen to participate in this initiative are the only schools in the Fort Beaufort District which had a computer. Of these only three have an internet link. In most cases it was a single computer, located in the school principal’s office. Following BEFSA’s intervention and its partnership with Vodacom all 55 schools have been connected to the internet. The remaining 210 schools in the district do not have a single computer and have therefore not been included in this first initiative to partner schools across the two hemispheres. It would probably be accurate to say that these schools are characterised by even greater levels of educational impoverishment. It is not the aim of this initiative to exclude any school. Over time BEFSA expects schools with a computer and internet link to reach out and allow their neighbouring school(s) to access their computer and internet facilities. BEFSA also intends establishing a number of IT resource centres across the district for use by schools and local communities. This partnership initiative is fundamentally about taking steps to bridge and close the gap between schools in the developed and developing world. It is unashamedly about the facilitation of positive interventions to enable the former homeland and rural schools to move forward. Schools in the UK are well placed to support this initiative and many in Oxfordshire have indicated a willingness to do so. As partnerships are about sharing and joint working, the expectation will be for mutual support and common benefits. The partnerships will aim to share and celebrate different cultures, share intellectual ideas, assist in curriculum development e.g. Citizenship and Global Awareness, Life Skills, History/Heritage, Geography, Tourism, to share curriculum resources and learning materials, and to share expertise: e.g. assisting with the development of leadership and management training. Through this partnership initiative all UK schools will be expected to adopt an entitlement curriculum for global citizenship from age 4-19, to offer learning experiences that provide for the promotion of the global dimension, to offer programmes of learning that provides pupils with an insight into development and global issues and to help pupils understand the reasons for and the impact of poverty on people and countries in the developing world. Future Partnership Activities 1. School Development Planning A useful starting point for all UK and SA schools is the sharing of development plans. Whilst whole school development plans in the UK are detailed and sophiscated, they are rarely this advanced in South African schools. In some cases there will not be a school development plan at all or in other cases plans which reflect the impoverished nature of the educational support and guidance these schools are receiving. In anticipation of some communication around this management activity, schools in the Fort Beaufort District which are participating in this initiative have set up a task team to advise their head teacher colleagues on the importance and development of whole school planning. BEFSA will be supporting the task group and facilitating workshops for all partnership schools to ensure that the development plans are rooted in the guidance issued by the provincial education department. 2. A distance education programme A distance education programme and the creation of the ‘virtual’ classroom supported by three major South African Universities. (Fort Hare, UNISA and Stellenbosch). Using Interactive Telematic Education (satellite technology) developed and pioneered by the University of Stellenbosch the aim is to provide good quality distance education, particularly in science and maths, accessible to a geographically dispersed student population throughout the Fort Beaufort District. As such the distance education programme will render considerations such as time, distance and an area’s rurality irrelevant in the provision of quality teaching, and places students in the rural areas on a comparable footing with their counterparts in the cities. It is intended to support the work of classroom teachers as direct interaction between student and teacher will still be required in the pre and post satellite lesson. Within the 'virtual' classroom, there will be opportunities for internet driven programmes, for interactive television broadcasts, and for teacher driven activities. The interactive television broadcasts are essentially a one-way image with interactive audio which is independent of landlines. Each student is able to talk to the ‘teacher’ delivering the lesson in the TV studio via a dedicated telephone. It is in this regard that the virtual classroom differs from normal classrooms. Each classroom will have a TV, a satellite decoder, a satellite dish and a telephone handset for each pupil. It is BEFSA’s hope that each UK school will be able to support their partner school in the development and maintenance of this initiative. Partnership Coordinator: Dr Keith Borien (CEO, BEFSA) E-mail: keithborien@befsa.co.uk Tel and Fax: 0027 (0) 21 876 2423 Cell: 0027 (0) 82 418 5648 Partnership Support South Africa Miss Nomfundo Sobukwe (In Country Officer, Local Coordinator): E-mail: nomfundosobukwe@befsa.org Tel: 0027 (0)78 561 1936 Fort Beaufort District Education Manager: Mrs Unathi Nqandela (Tel: 0027 (0) 46 6452964) Education Development Officer: Ms Tumsi Maweni (Tel: 0027 (0) 82 746 9936) University of Fort Hare: Mr Jama Mbatani (Tel: 0027 (0) 82 200 3387) Partnership Support United Kingdom Mr Martin Roberts (BEFSA Trustee, Oxfordshire): Tel: 00 44 (0) 1865 510039 Email: hmartinroberts@btinternet.com Mr Richard Graydon Tel: 0044 (0) 1179 248402 Email: richardgraydon@ukonline.co.uk |
|||||||||
 Back to top |
||||||||||
| Donate | How can you help? | Contact | Disclaimer Copyright © 2007 BEFSA - Borien Educational Foundation for Southern Africa |
| Website design and development by Office for Design |  |
|
|