Views Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO)
A thirst for knowledge in spite of poverty
Sarah Wiles is a British Multi-Media Producer for leading international development charity, VSO. Currently based in Madang in Papua New Guinea, she produces film and photography to support VSO’s education programme. Sarah reflects on her experience so far.
For a land that seems so remote and difficult to understand, it’s easy
to have misconceptions about what life is like in Papua New Guinea. We’re bombarded with stereotypical images showing poverty, neglect and inequality. These pictures only depict some of the reality of this diverse and amazing country that is bursting with culture, colour and spectacular scenery.
I passionately believe that every child has the right to an education and deserves to have the same opportunities, but 57 million primary school age children around the globe don’t attend school. In Papua New Guinea alone there’s a 22% dropout rate for primary school girls. Papua New Guinea’s education system faces major challenges, from overcrowded classrooms, teacher absenteeism, high drop-out rates for girls, to poor infrastructure and limited resources. Teachers also have to contend with teaching an incomplete curriculum, but despite these challenges, young people still want to learn and teachers go to great lengths to teach. The thirst for education is universal and it’s something that all young people deserve to have access to.
One young boy is glued to his reading book, sat on a wooden bench with sand under his feet in a classroom on an island in the middle of the Sepik River. His reading material may be scarce, but there are excellent initiatives in Papua New Guinea like “Buk bilong Pikinini” that set up libraries full of donated children’s books. “Buk bilong Pikinini” also runs literacy programmes that include storytelling. Other children sit on the floor, unlike conventional classrooms in Asia where this is frowned upon. In Papua New Guinea, teachers lay down mats made from local bush materials and children have a wonderful area for a range of activities. Lack of trained teachers is a huge problem with a deficit of 800 elementary teachers in one of Papua New Guinea’s twenty-two provinces alone. Despite many teachers not being paid, they still come to class to support the children. In other parts of the world this would cause mass strike action. In remote parts of East Sepik, some teachers identify a lack of schooling in their village and establish their own school. Then they give some of their friends and family basic teacher training to teach previously unschooled children. Many of these ‘schools’ are situated underneath people’s homes. (In Papua New Guinea, lots of houses are built on stilts). VSO helps teachers move away from the practice of ‘chalk and talk’, where pupils simply listen to their teacher and copy what’s on the board. Volunteers now encourage teachers to use more engaging strategies and resources made from recycled materials. This has had a huge impact. It may be a struggle to find pencils and paper, but people are incredibly resourceful; making musical instruments out of natural objects, carving their own story-boards and using recycled cardboard for various teaching aids. Whatever the circumstances, eager young faces fill the room and teachers make the absolute best of whatever they have available to them. It’s so important for VSO’s work to continue so children can have access to a quality education.
020 8780 7500
enquiry@vso.org.uk
www.vso.org.uk/bethevolunteer/education
Sarah Wiles British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)
Pupils should not be disconnected from the
Digital Classroom This month, Patrick Hayes, Director, BESA, reflects on the poor provision of broadband in many of our nation’s schools.
For me, one of the delights of the Bett Show is exploring the array of exciting new start-ups
developing new digital products, to help make teachers’ lives easier. A highlight this year was ClassCharts, an initiative devised by a teacher in Pembrokeshire who has developed an ingenious way of providing teachers with the ideal digital seating plan for their classroom; it minimises disruption and can be updated in real time.
Imagine how much easier it would be for a supply teacher to come into the classroom and at a glance know not just the names and faces of all the pupils, but also who had misbehaved in the last class. Having this insight enables teachers to position students to ensure they concentrate on the lesson at hand, rather than being distracted by others.
Such innovations, and many more, deserve to become an integral part of the fabric of the classroom in years to come. So it was all the more startling to attend the launch of a major new report published by BESA and education technology association Naace. The report revealed that a large number of schools across the country still don’t have sufficient broadband to be able to access the transformative power of innovations, such as ClassCharts, and others showcased at Bett.
This report, which surveyed a representative sample of schools in the UK, found that 30 per cent of primary schools and 20 per cent of secondary schools are under-resourced when it comes to broadband connectivity. In fact, during 2016, 38 per cent of primary pupils are expected to have poor access to the Internet. This means that around 1.5 million primary-school pupils in the UK struggle to access the online world to aid their schooling! This issue was, at least, mentioned by education secretary Nicky Morgan who spoke of the Government’s long-term plan to invest £1.3 billion on broadband. She said that it shouldn’t matter, “where our children are, at home or at school, inner-city academies or countryside schoolhouses, they will have that access”.
For pupils in the classroom today and teachers trying to utilise new technology to help drive up standards of education, this long- term plan cannot come to fruition soon enough. However, even for those who are able to get access, sadly the future does not look bright in terms of IT investment. A total of 46 per cent of all schools surveyed feel they will be unable to maintain IT investments in the next school year, as belts are tightened. The rise in new technologies in the classroom have been liberating in many ways, but this liberation does not come for free. Without the necessary IT infrastructure and a sufficient budget for the cutting-edge software, pupils and teachers alike may fail to have access to the great promise of the Digital Classroom. In turn they could end up being disconnected from the benefits it has to offer.
For information from BESA contact: Patrick Hayes 020 7537 4997
patrick@besa.org.uk
www.besa.org.uk
March 2016
www.education-today.co.uk 7 Patrick Hayes
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