Article By: Mike Wood, Chairman of the Kent Head Teachers' IT Advisory Committee
What's the Need?
"Will you come and give a presentation to my staff?" asked the headteacher of a primary school on the Tugela River in KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. I couldn't immediately see what I had to offer his enthusiastic teachers whose vibrant classrooms and eager students had left me full of admiration.
"What about?" was my immediate response. As a retired secondary principal I'm hardly brimming with insights into the primary curriculum.
"Anything at all will do. They get so little chance to interact with an educator outside of the immediate area."
The dilemma of his teachers is obvious. Large classes, no support staff, few resources and little opportunity for networking beyond the locality. They desperately need to exchange views and opinions with colleagues from other parts of the globe.
The first response of the UK visitor to such a school is often to offer to raise funds or channel resources to their African colleague. Few African schools would refuse such overtures but it is increasingly being recognised that it is partners which Africa needs, not just donors.
Partnerships
The first requirement for a lasting relationship between schools is effective communication. This may take far longer than you ever anticipate. Email is easy but not if your electicity is erratic. So the second requirement is patience and a capacity to listen rather than offer an instant resolution to every problem raised.
Subtle cultural differences may take time to emerge but they are essential to understanding how others do things. The independence and capacity for local initiative in an English school will amaze an African staffroom but equally astounded is the English headteacher at the African teacher's willingness to accept authority.
Pupil Benefits
UK teachers often comment that their pupils have little understanding of the world beyond their locality. Simple exchanges about everyday life lead to increased understanding and trust between participants. "What do you eat?" "What do you wear to school?" and "How do you spend your leisure time?" are just 3 common starters. Questions about toilet facilities, as I discovered when giving a recent talk at a Kent Secondary school, hold endless fascination.
At a more profound level Mandisa,a 17 year old Zulu girl, visiting Germany last year, expressed amazement that lessons there were taught in German. Only when her German partners questioned her did it emerge that as she had learned in English throughout her time in school she had naturally assumed that the language of tuition throughout the world was English. "Why wasn't I taught in my home language, IsiZulu?" was her angry response. My tentative answers about history and limited resources clearly didn't satisfy her. Rightly so. She was from that day a fierce proponent of home language tuition.
This year English secondary pupils' conviction that there were wild animals lurking at the school gate in an African town of 100,000 people was rightly treated with derision by visiting African partner.
Towards Greater Understanding
Computers 4 Africa is providing an exemplary service in shipping refurbished computers for African partner organisations to build capacity in African schools to meet local and global challenges.
Schools do their pupils considerable service in Africa and the UK in providing partnership opportunities to develop well informed global citizens.
Whether through email contact, joint curriculum projects, teacher visits or pupil exchanges school links offer us a vital step to building mutual trust and improving understanding.
Mike Wood is the Chairman of the Kent Head Teachers' IT Advisory Committee.
