Views Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO)
“I tapped resources I didn’t know I had!”
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dult literacy tutor Sarah Jago spent two years in Cambodia with VSO and talks about the opportunities that open up when volunteering overseas
“I’d been teaching literacy, confidence-building and report- writing for five years, but due to local government cutbacks I started looking at other options and came across VSO. When I suggested volunteering overseas
to my husband, he jumped at the chance to do something new, and we ended up applying together.
VSO are very good at encouraging you and finding placements that suit your particular skills and experience. My husband got a position as a management advisor in Cambodia for two years, while I was assigned a six month project to complete a report on education in the country. This involved compiling first-hand accounts of the challenges teachers and pupils face, and also speaking to officials and ministers. Using the great network of VSO volunteers in the country, I was able to visit some wonderful schools in very poor and rural areas. I also encountered programmes run by VSO that provided training for teaching children with special needs, including disabilities like Down’s syndrome and cerebral palsy.
Disability in Cambodia is often treated as shameful, and it is commonly believed to be a sign of sins committed in a previous life. Despite this, I found that communities were very open to the idea of disabled people having rights, and there were some great programmes in the country which changed attitudes and provided schooling for children who would otherwise have been hidden away. During the course of my work I met another VSO volunteer called James who was assisting the Disability Action Council (DAC), an umbrella organisation for all the disability NGOs in the country working on lobbying the government to pass a law protecting the rights of disabled people. James and I were both nearing the end of our placements, but I wanted to stay on with my husband and was interested in James’s work. As I already had some experience teaching people with disability, and had built up relationships with the ministers James was working with, we agreed with VSO that I could take over from him and I ended up doing two placements instead of one! I immersed myself in the issue of disability rights, and consulted international conventions and EU legislation in order to fine-tune the draft of the law the DAC were promoting. I met an English lawyer called John at a quiz night one evening, and enlisted him to help with making sure that the bill was worded correctly. We also worked with a local lawyer who could translate it into Khmer and make sure it was still legally sound.
The whole process took a lot of time and investment, with plenty of ideas going back and forth, but it was worth it in the end as we got a very good law published as a result. This provides a solid framework for protecting the rights and freedoms of people with disabilities in Cambodia, and sets the standard for how disabled people should be treated and the rehabilitation services they should be entitled to. It was a great experience for me as well. I got to learn new skills and tapped resources I didn’t know I had! I had to juggle the contributions and agendas of a range of people and organisations, and be sensitive to their concerns when giving guidance and advice. When I finished my placement, I definitely felt I gained far more than I gave. VSO is about making the best of the skills and opportunities you have. It really is a privilege to be able to volunteer overseas, and I would recommend it to anyone to go for it!”
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www.education-today.co.uk British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)
Tablet technology in the classroom: an easy pill to swallow?
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n a regular basis, the education sector’s trade association BESA carries out independent research to track changes in product implementation and procurement in schools. This month, BESA’s director, Caroline Wright, takes a look at the latest research into the adoption of tablet technology and supporting apps
“The headline findings of the annual ‘Tablets and apps in schools’ survey of 632 UK schools (327 primary, 305 secondary) conducted in May 2013, highlight a significant increase in the use of tablet technology in schools. Surveyed schools believe that by the end of 2013, more than 10 per cent of teaching computers in schools will be tablets. This is a significant increase from the six per cent forecast in 2012. If these figures are used against data collated from schools’ IT managers, it can be estimated that by the end of 2013, 258,000 tablets will be used in schools.
The increasing proportion of hardware in schools being tablets is expected to continue to rise, with schools predicting that the percentage of tablets will increase to 24 per cent by the end of 2015. With this, therefore, comes an increasing expectation by teachers for publishers to produce appropriate apps to support learning on tablets. Schools forecast that 40 per cent (38 per cent primary, 42 per cent secondary) of all ICT based learning will be on educational apps by 2020 (an increase from 28.5 per cent in 2012).
Because of this, more than 26 per cent of respondents indicate a high expectation for publisher created educational apps, compared with 19.8 per cent in 2012. However, 94 per cent of schools stated they had some expectation for these apps. In fact, 75 per cent of surveyed schools stated that installing and paying for apps is one of the barriers to the adoption of tablets.
It is heartening to see that schools appear to be growing in confidence in making their own decisions, and measuring all related factors affecting the total cost of ownership of a product, rather than waiting for government guidance on hardware procurement.
Another interesting indicator identified by the research was schools’ views on the current buzz words ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD), with an increasing number of teachers suggesting that such schemes are very important to tablet adoption. 67 per cent of schools currently believe this method of product adoption is important, compared with just 52 per cent in 2012.
The growing interest in BYOD schemes comes with many important considerations for schools, given that the device is owned by a pupil rather than the school. We recommend a formal school policy which covers issues such as software licencing, associated costs including IT support, remote connectivity to the school’s network and the procedure when a student leaves the school.
The mean price required to encourage schools to procure tablets in significant quantities is currently around £200. Interestingly, primary schools have reduced this price from £205 in 2012 to £185 in 2013, while secondary schools have increased their view of the average price to encourage purchase from £190 in 2012 to £212 in 2013. It is clear that in terms of portability and price, tablets certainly appear to have a growing place in the learning environment.”
uwww.besa.org.uk May 2013
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