Archive for the ‘Conferences’ Category

July 2010 – In between the World Cup festivities and the school holidays, Lois attended an Educator conference in Kampala, Uganda, for a few days. The Flora Family Foundation from the USA invited all their grantees with the purpose of discussing lessons learned, successes and challenges, which had impacted on the various organisations. One of the many highlights was meeting people from all over Africa, who grapple with the same issues relating to education.

The Enlighten Conference, hosted at the end of October, was a great success. Most of the speakers, the delegates and Enlighten staff were delighted with the high standard of the discussions, the excellent speakers, the venue, as well as the catering. A host of ideas and practical strategies have been formulated and can now be implemented. Enlighten appreciated the presence of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) officials. A DVD, covering the entire conference, is available for sale from the Enlighten office at a cost of R150

 .

Tracy was asked by a Cape Town organization to share her methods of working and the making of her resources with educators from the Cape Metropole region where she participated in a two-day workshop at the end of November.

On the 19th August, Lois attended a conference on “Whole School Development – Myth or Reality” at Arabella.  This was a most inspiring and motivating day. 

Educational experts voiced their considerable concerns about the state of education openly and honestly.  

At long last there is also concern being expressed about the lack of content knowledge which teachers show, the extraordinary amounts of money which have been spent on training without any translation into classroom practice, the way in which incompetency has been allowed to continue etc. There were many really good speakers and it was extremely refreshing to get the realities of education on the table for discussion and debate.  Interestingly, there appeared to be consensus that the new curriculum is fine but OBE methodology cannot be implemented at this stage.

All in all, a very worthwhile day – for local networking too.

Lois was invited to the launch of the Bitou 10 Foundation (a cluster of 10 schools in the Bitou municipal area) in Plettenberg Bay. It was most interesting and useful. The schools are very much like ours with many of the same needs as well as a similar focus. Some function well and some a lot less well. We saw one school making considerable progress with regard to literacy and were able to spend time with Marlene Rousseau who is doing the literacy work. Numeracy remains static – as it does here, in the country as a whole and, indeed, globally. Aarnout Brombacher (maths specialist with his own consultancy) has done an investigation in the Bitou schools and was able to pass on some useful ideas which have been given to Frank.

The National Minister of Education was impressive and she gave interesting input regarding the Departments’ thinking over the next few years. One of the issues is that of textbooks. No publishers will be allowed into schools to “bribe” schools into ordering their publications. All textbooks will be scrutinized and only quality publications will be placed on a select list from which schools may order. At last!!

The Minister also informed us of the results of a Task Team set up to investigate what makes well-functioning schools work. Ex- Model C (white), DET (black) and HOR (coloured) schools doing well were investigated. The top three factors which came out of the study were: 1. Quality teachers (commitment, passion and work ethic) 2. Teacher competence (subject knowledge, teaching skills) and 3. Learner competence (understanding, thinking and application of knowledge). The next two were consistent application of school rules and regulations, followed by a will at the school to achieve academically. A copy of the full report written after the visit is available in the office.

Perhaps the most useful contact made during the visit was that with the Special Advisor to the Minister, Martin Mulcahy. The Minister has diarized the 19^th April to open the new building.