Cape Town Higher Ed "Inside and Out"

Today we packed in two major learning opportunities. 

First we visited the University of Cape Town. Our major topic was higher education in South Africa and how students from R/K-12 transition into. First I was surprised to learn that everything seems settled in 10th grade. You have to make decisions on what you want to do in higher education and plan accordingly. Bacholors degrees are really a three year program in SA and are dependent on what you did the last couple of in high school if you didn't take hhttp://www.robben-island.org.za/eavy math, you are not going to be able to major in math. The other thing I was surprised to see is there really is no articulation partnerships. You can forget transferring credits from one university to another. 

My main curiosity is what are universities doing after apartheid to afford opportunities to all students? 

For the University of Cape Town, the answer given was CHED http://www.ched.uct.ac.za/about/overview/

We met with Suellen Shay, Dean of Higher Education Development. She gave us candid valuable in site to what her university was doing to to help. They have implemented a number of programs. The three that I felt were the most intriguing were: A first year assistance program, extended time (program of studies that was geared for four years instead of three), and a program that took the brightest from 20 township schools and achieved a 80% acceptance rate. I did seem to see a student body that seemed to reflect a significant amount of diversity. (The University of Cape Town was a white institution before the end of apartheid.)

After our visit at the university we went to Robben Island. http://www.robben-island.org.za/

This was a prison where many proclaimed political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, were imprisoned.

One of the most fascinating details to me was how many prisoners worked on their education in prison and even received degrees from higher institutions of learning while being there.

It was not what I expected. In many ways. The theme was not...look what bad things happened here, but let's celebrate unity and the triumph of human spirit. It may take some time for me to really figure out how I felt about the visit. 

No Photos

Ok, so I have a photo of a big chess board. HA!

But, we made it to Cape Town today. After getting settled into our new home (40 Winks) we made a trip to the US Embassy. The title of my post is no photos, because you can't take photos of the
Embassy. Security seemed to be very good. No need to go into details, but let's just say that I felt very safe inside the facility. I didn't know what to expect. They basically gave us a quick briefing of what was going on in South Africa. It was well done and it was just for our little group of 7. 

It was basically broken down into three sections. Economic/political, Security, and Public Relations.

While there was a lot of good information, the one thing that I didn't realize is how much money the US is spending on HIV programs in South Africa. I believe that its truly appropriate. In the area we spent the most time in, the Eastern Cape, 15% of the population has HIV, in the townships it is as much as 1 in 4.

Principal McKay talked about 12 year old's being the head of household because both parents had died, and they were taking care of their brothers and sisters. Sad very sad. 

Last Day @ Emafini

Today was the last day for us at Emafini. I wish I had a few more days. While I know I accomplished a lot with their technology issues, there was a lot more I wanted to do. The great thing is we installed Skype and some other tools to allow us to still work with them. I should be able to help from across the pond with some of their technology needs. What an amazing group of professionals Emafini has. Their warm personalities and dedication to the profession certainly provide their learners with positive outcomes. I will miss them, but we should still be able to be connected through the power of the Internet.

I truly hope to be able to come back someday, and hope they have an opportunity to visit us.

Today Principal McKay had to leave the school for a brief time. He gave me his key to his office just in case I had to leave and needed to lock it.

Horridly over regulated!

Today we visited two schools before returning to our home-base of Emafini.

Both are former "Model C" schools. During apartheid these schools were all white schools that might be described as semi-private. While they are public schools, there is a significant fee to parents attached to student attendance.

We visited Cape Recife High School, and Grey Junior School.

Cape Recife is a school that focuses on special education.  We only has a short amount of time to spend there, but what we saw fantastic. The services available to learners was amazing.

Ever since we have been in South Africa, many have talked about Grey as the school to aspire to be. Their mission is to develop the learners full potential in mind body and spirit. An all boys school, Grey is a former model c school. Their head master, Mr. Pearson, won my line of the day. He had been to the US and toured 17 schools his take on american education was that it was "horridly over regulated!"

While both schools charge parents fees for their children to attend, its clear that even with these fees, significant fundraising is required just to maintain their programs. 

Below you will find photos of two distinctively different public schools. How do you attempt to tackle equity issue? While both Lungisa and Grey work hard to maintain what they have, how can you justify the stark contrast in public schools?

Grey Boys School (Junior/Senior) Former Model C School.

Lungisa (A Township High School )

School Budgeting in South Africa

Today was a great day for reflection. We had a great lunch at the home of a Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University professor. The discussion was great and helped at clarifying some of the things I have seen here. One of the stark realities is budget. Today I wanted to reflect on school finances a bit because I know I am going to get to see a government school tomorrow that is said to be cutting edge. Emafini was officially listed of having 1233 learners for funding purposes.

The school gets 1059 Rand per learner per year in funding. That includes many things, including maintenance of the school. The government pays for their teachers from a different source, but operating expenses have to come out of that amount. The school gets 481 Rand per learner, per year to provide lunch.

Lets put this in perspective: It costs $48.00 to per child to feed them for a school year. They get roughly $105.00 per child a year to run the school. A recent study suggested that investing in teaching and learning support materials leads to better student outcomes (Rooyen, 2010, p. 166). Emafini receives about $48.00 per student in this area per year.

So lets just look at child nutrition. They go to school 201 days a year. So they feed their learners for $.23 cents a day. In one of my photos you can see the document that lists the only ingredients they are allowed to purchase for lunches. Having seen the lunch staff cooking, they do an excellent job with the resources provided. They do all the cooking as unpaid volunteers. They are family members of the children that attend.

After I get to see a school that is "well" off I will contrast some of the perceived budget differences.

Rooyen, J. V. Managing teaching and learning in South African schools. 

International Journal of Educational Development, 162-168.

Addo

We went to Addo Elephant National Park today.

http://sanparks.org/parks/addo/

It was an amazing experience. I took lots of photos, but only had a couple to upload from my iphone. Seeing all the animals in their natural habitat was great. We may have seen nearly 100 elephants. Over 50 i'm sure. I loved the warthogs too. They seemed to have a great attitude. I bet I'm leaving one out, but we saw: Elephants, Zebras, Ostrich, Warthogs, Kudu, Water Buffalo, Mongoose, Red Heart Beast, Many Birds, Jackal, and Dung Beetles, but they were at the visitor center. 

The park was established in 1931. It was formed during a time when Afrikaner nationalism was emerging and other national parks were being created with a seemingly political agenda. (Coombes, 2003, p. 154). Some argue that the intention to establish national parks was to invent a reality where Afrikaners were by tradition nature conservationists. 

Over 80 years later, the park seems to have been very successful even if its initial creation may not have been pure at face value. Those issues seem to have all but faded into the background by my observations today.

Coombes, A. E. (2003). History after apartheid: Visual culture and public memory in a democratic South Africa. Durham: Duke University Press. 

Technology issues are common everywhere.

OK, so it really be titled students will be students. 

I have been amazed this week at student behavior at Emafini. Keep in mind it's a 1-7 (grade) school with 1200 students. I have been working on their student information system so I have been in the office a lot. I have not seen one student referred to the office for behavior issues.

Today we visited a high school. It was not a normal day for the school. Teachers were getting ready to go to a conference so it was an early release day and we didn't get to see "normal". But...there was some evidence in the computer lab that suggests that high school students share some similar behaviors throughout the world.

Voodoo that you do!

First, removing viruses from computers without the classic format/re-install can be tough. Often I think of it as an art vs a science. Sometimes it feels like it took some voodoo. Every piece of malware can be different on how you have to tackle the. I am happy to say that Emafini's office computers appear to be virus free. They have been updated and configured to run a good local file share, and a new access point has been installed that makes the  network faster and more reliable. We are about ready to tackle the student information system. Things are coming along. 

The principal took Rob and I to the central office on the way to get the access-point that we need. They are responsible for over 300 schools. They have ten people, that I might equate to regional superintendents, each of them over see 30 principals/schools. I got to spend a little bet of time with one while at the department. She actually had to supervise 60 schools because they were short one staff member. It was clear she, and speaking on behalf of her colleagues were overwhelmed and frustrated with the monumental task of keeping things going with these variables. 

Ok some comic relief, perhaps. During our visit, the district administrator we talked to told us that she recently had to deal with an issue at a school that I would not know how to handle. There was a teacher that was having problems getting along with the other teachers in the building. She was threatening them with voodoo curses and witchcraft when she disagreed with them. She implied that she helped by getting anger management counseling for the aggressive teacher. I seemed humorous even to the district administrator, but it was still a real problem that had to be addressed and had to be looked at a many cultural levels. The teacher was Xhosa teaching at a formal all white model c school. I gathered that the faculty was now more diverse but there were some significantculture clashes. While it did sound like the Xhosa teacher's behavior was unacceptable, I would want to know the cause of why she was lashing out.

100+ students?

Ok, First this is really a place holder, I'm gong to come back and add some thoughts and Info. I just wanted to let folks know a little bit of what went on today. We visited a school where there are more than 100 students per class, per teacher in a space about 20'x30'. Wow. Warm positive school. They had a nice new library build inside a shipping container that VW had helped pay for. Made some progress on the computer issues today for Emafini Primary. That is going well. Saw a really cool youth center. (More on that later). So today's blog will be updated, but just wanted to give a little info before I went to bed.

First day!

When I first knew we were going to South Africa, I wonder what our accommodations were going to be like. Here is a link to the website of the B&B we are staying at: http://www.hobiebeach.co.za/

First, the photos are really well done. Things look bigger and more luxurious than that are, but it is nice. In fact, if anyone is going to Port Elizabeth, I can give it a hardy recommendation. Fred, the proprietor is very friendly as well as his staff. Breakfast today was fantastic. We are staying near the beach/vacation area. Below is a shiny hotel near is. We are not staying here, but I thought it was a good contrast compared to a good portion of the day.

I am not going into great detail with this post as I need to digest some of the experience and put them in perspective, but the stark reality was the amazing difference between the haves and have not's. Don't get me wrong, we have some of the same thing in the states, but the degree of the disparity here is profoundly different. On the way to the school we are visiting, Emafini Primary School, I got to see first hand some of the shanty towns I had heard about. I did not get any photos that do it justice.

I may try to describe it better in another post. But imagine if you could fit the town of Lake Waccamaw, NC in a couple of square miles with no running water, no sanctioned electricity, and each dwelling being compared to the worse dilapidated storage buildings you see in Columbus county.
50%, give or take, of the students at the school we are visiting come from these areas.

Emafini is a warm caring school with great teachers. I was worried about how I could help. Well, I found out today they need my computer help. They have some student information software and some computers they would like get going. It's a mandate from their national Department of Education. I feel like I want to learn more about Emafini and it's students, or learners as they are called here, before I discuss more about them in my blog.

We also visited the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, great experience for a later post. They had a warning about monkeys, but disappointingly I didn't see any.

We're here!

We made it. The flight was painful 19-20 Hours of flying. But we are here. We are trying to stay awake so we can get acclimated to the 6 hour time difference. Where we are staying you can here kids playing at a local primary school.

Made it to JFK

Today is a pure "travel" day. We've made it to JFK with everyone seemingly excited. Our plane is a nice big one. Hope I can stay sane for the 14+ hours.

Night before the big travel day.

I am here at the Holiday Inn Express near the RDU airport. I have a 4:30am shuttle time, so I better go to bed early. My bag weighs in at 40lbs, so I'm good there. Can't wait to see what the classroom environment is like in South Africa. I have no expectations. Found out a Band I have been listening to is from South Africa, the Kongos. Somehow I don't they represent popular music in South Africa, but I could be wrong.

Getting Ready...

Hello! Excitement is in the air! I have called my banks, gotten my shots, read about South Africa. Soon I will be on my way. My only apprehension is that I don't know what I am doing with Elementary students. My teaching experience is with adult learners. I have been told that the school I am going to doesn't have electricity in the classrooms. Does that mean my technology expertise is not going to be helpful? This is my first post just to make sure my technology is up and running.