The Science and Mathematics Bridging Programme (SciMathUS) is a post-matric programme at the University of Stellenbosch (US). It affords 100 talented learners every year the opportunity of qualifying for mainstream higher education. It is a Flagship programme of the US, and IMSTUS’s largest programme, (40% of total budget). It was started in 2001 in response to the university’s need for black student undergraduates, particularly in STEM degree programmes. The year-long school-to-university bridging programme offers talented disadvantaged black students an opportunity to improve their Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Accounting marks. SciMathUS overcomes learning gaps in students Grade 12 learning in these subjects by applying a hybrid collaborative-learning and problem-based method in which both the students and the educators to explore and find solutions to the concepts in a negotiated and collaborative way. The programme was nominated for the Impumelelo Award in 2009. Student selection is considered the most important aspect of the programme. The minimum requirement is 30% in NSC Mathematics and Science. Students with Maths Literacy are also accepted but must complete the subject Mathematics.
SEEDS funding helped to increase student numbers to 100 students. Food, accommodation, transport, textbooks, and registration and course fees are all paid for by the programme. Students write the National Senior Certificate examination (in Mathematics and Physical Science) at the end of the academic year. Accounting examinations are set within the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.
Students NSC mathematics and science examination marks increased by an average of 15 percentage points and some by as much as 30 points. In terms of completion rates, success varies year-on-year: there was a 25% drop out rate in 2009/2010 intake with 75 of the 100 students graduating which was attributed to the new NCS curriculum (75% success completion rate). In terms of students longitudinal performance at university level there is a drop-out rate of 30% amongst SciMathUS students, a slightly better rate than non-participating students at the university.
The programme faces a number of challenges including: lack of government subsidies for pre-programme initiatives; language of instruction [Afrikaans] is often a consideration limiting student intake; lack of integration with the broader faculty of the University; too few and inappropriately located venues within the University.
SciMathUS has evolved a successful problem-based approach to bridging that combines didactic and collaborative elements to effectively address gaps in students’ formal skills and content knowledge, in addition to their confidence and abilities to work and function collaboratively and socially irrespective of background. Its track record is not disputed; however, the programme’s most serious challenge to sustainability lies in its financial aspects and convincing the Ministry of Higher Education and perhaps the private sector of the desirability of funding bridging programmes.
ACE in Mathematics
The Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) in Mathematics is IMSTUS’s 2-year in-service distance training programme for Mathematics teachers. The ACE in Mathematics provides qualified rural teachers with a non-residence programme in the subjects Mathematics or Physical Science and meets an existing need.
The programme makes use of a blended learning approach which combines face-to-face contact, self study and e-learning (interactive telematics sessions and discussions on a web-based programme management system - Moodle). The ACE was started in 2009. In 2010 new student numbers climbed to 42 before dropping back to 29 in 2011, primarily because of lack of subsidy funding. The ACE is offered in four provinces where US has distance learning facilities.
This ACE in Mathematics according to IMSTUS introduces a national in-service model for teachers in rural schools combining contact/face-to-face sessions with e-learning and telematics to create a vital and virtual community of practice using the internet and mobile phones essential to sustained impact on classroom practice in a blended learning format. The model has been presented to national and international (African) audiences at conferences in South Africa and Zambia.
The major challenge facing the IMSTUS ACE in Mathematics is financial. It has proved difficult to secure funding for 2012 within the Western Cape since the WCED has decided it will no longer provide student bursaries for ACE’s. IMSTUS offers the programme in other provinces that provide ACE funding and where US has satellite campuses. The WCED’s alternative proposal to fund teachers taking Short Courses – essentially the ACE offered in compact packages - has also not yet come to fruition, posing a very real threat to the programmes continued financial and longer term viability. Further, there is both a two-year delay in payment of the government subsidy to the university and some dispute as to on-payment of this subsidy payment to IMSTUS by US.
The ACE’s major challenge is thus one of addressing and removing these challenges to its sustainability.
TBP
The Teaching Biology Project (TBP) is an initiative of AEGI and UWC (initially the Education Faculty and School of Science and Mathematics Education, now the Centre for Natural Science for Teaching and Learning in close association with staff from the Biodiversity and Conservation Biology Department) to develop appropriate content for the teaching of new scientific material in schools (GET and FET) as well as provide training opportunities to science educators responsible for teaching this material. SEEDS funds TBP to the sum of R16m, 18.8% of Focus Area 1 funds: it is the third largest project in maths and science.
The TBP’s goal is to support the professional development of pre- and in-service teachers at the General Education and Training (GET) and Further Education and Training (FET) phases, with expertise being drawn from the Western Cape Education Department, Western Cape universities and various senior Science and Education consultants in order to improve the teaching and learning of Natural Sciences, Life Sciences and Social Sciences.
AGEI and UWC agreed to run the TBP’s training programmes respectively for in-service and pre-service educators, with participation of senior science experts and science educators and development of new materials, in order to propagate the appropriate pedagogical skills to teach competently and confidently. Between 350 and 400 in-service teachers have benefitted from the TBP, as have 300 undergraduate life-sciences and ten pre-service life sciences students at UWC.
The in-service Training in Evolutionary Biology at the GET and FET levels focuses on: professional development through thrice-yearly conferences (AEGI) complemented with ongoing lesson plan and material development support (AEGI/UWC). The four-day conferences integrate appropriate phase content knowledge in the science of genomes and evolution with discussion on scientific method. The use of ICT is integral to the learning and teaching methodology of the TBP.
TBPs pre-service programme in life sciences and ecology is run by UWC’s Centre for Natural Science for Teaching and Learning in close association with staff from the Biodiversity and Conservation Biology Department and embraces curriculum and materials development specifically around the new curriculum (including in UWC’s undergraduate life sciences), development of a framework for training of pre-service life sciences teachers, holding of annual conferences and public promotion of life sciences, and running of Short Courses and Biology Colloquium/workshops in specific topics for teachers in the field.
Amongst the activities prescribed in TBP’s original proposal to SEEDS is a partnership with tertiary institutions in the province to “develop an appropriate framework and series of interventions that will ultimately enhance and improve pre-service learning” involving visitation and sharing with Dutch colleagues to learn from their curriculum and practices. Run by UWC, this component of the TBP will be implemented over the next year.
The pre-service component of the TBP to ‘reshape and revitalise professional practice amongst new life sciences teachers enrolled in the Western Cape’s higher education faculties’ is being implemented by both AEGI and UWC. AEGI’s contribution is through participation of CPUT pre-service life sciences students in its conferences. UWC’s involves working with their life sciences students as well as with their mentor teachers in the schools. Conceptual, pedagogic and skills training are available for students during the academic year, with special workshops provided in new learning areas as well as addressing curricula changes. During their three-month practice teaching in schools, UWC offers support, help with lesson plans, books, worksheets and props for lessons, and school visitations. Learning support materials have been produced, core practical lessons at Grades 10-12 work shopped, and a website for on-line access by students developed.
The TBP pre-service component has been downscaled due to the limited funding available to UWC. Nonetheless the project has ensured that life sciences pre-service teachers at UWC are more fully exposed to biology and, to an extent, earth sciences and ecology. Their project work has further addressed, through development of a ‘misconceptions in life sciences’ tool, which supports their pedagogical content-knowledge life sciences teaching approach.
UWC is adamant that their impact factor on per-service in other tertiary institutions could be significantly improved with more adequate funding being made available from project funds, pointing to positive project benefits including improved 2011 student pass rates from support provided to undergraduate life sciences courses at UWC (UWC has been allocated a total of R1.7m of TBP funds, 10.6% of funds available).
Some of key challenges TBP faces in respect of quality biology teaching in the classroom relates to factors intrinsic to the schools and how teachers approach their classroom practice, which in turn is leading to changes in emphasis in the programme for example through enhanced classroom-based support methodologies (AEGI), incorporation of more practical skills into pre-service training programmes (UWC), and increased use of ICT in the classroom (AEGI).
TBP’s third area of activities seeks very broadly to promote academic and learning support materials development for teaching about evolution, biology, and the nature of science, developing online support, promoting public understanding through annual conferences such as that on Human Evolution run at UWC in October 2009, as well as major workshops to improve access to scientific information and teaching. Academics and other individuals involved in TBP at AEGI and UWC respectively continue to contribute substantively in their own right to the deepening of knowledge and wider understanding of evolution, genetics and the biological sciences and the teaching thereof in the country, and internationally, through their engagement in this SEEDS project.
SAILLI
The goal of the SCIENCE AND INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE (SAILLI), with the Cape Higher Education Consortium, is to “equip disadvantaged youth with strong capabilities in maths and science so that they can participate fully in the disciplines that make up the knowledge economy.”
The 2008 SEEDS proposal proposed a shift away from their interventions which emphasised support of systemic institutional improvement towards selection of promising individuals in disadvantaged schools and placing them in high-quality learning environments at the start of their secondary school careers, supported by an array of learner-directed programmes. The numbers of SALLI learners benefitting from the Learner Placement Programme from Grades 9 to 12 is 65, with 45 supported from SEEDS funding.
In 2009, based on a review of the programme which questioned the results obtained from the initiatives above, SAILI initiated far-ranging discussions as to the direction of the programme and support for the enrichment programme “to see that everyone was getting the best benefits for resources spent”. The results were sobering, with learner results not in line with SAILLI’s array of learner-directed programmes. With rising school fees and increased competition for placement in such schools the Learner Placement Programme was also becoming unaffordable. The evaluation recognised that the Learner Placement Programme reliance on placing talent in excellent – but expensive - ‘high-end’ schools was not sustainable, nor necessary. A new approach and model was needed.
The problem according to SAILI was that they were overlooking opportunities in “moderately priced, quality local schools”. The challenge lay in linking such poor but talented learners to a locally high-performing high school – if such schools could be identified or existed in the neighbourhood – where their talent could be nurtured. SAILLI’s challenge therefore was in selection of talent and identification of well-priced local, high-performing high schools with whom it can partner and find places for talented, genuinely needy students graduating from nearby primary schools who under normal circumstances would not afford (or be offered) a place in such schools.
This action-research based approach, supplemented by thorough evaluation, has led to a new focus in 2010: “We have evolved from an education intervention into a scholarship programme.” SAILI continues to provide bursaries to learners already on the programme; in 2010 in response to the debate outlined above SAILLI suspended recruitment of new students pending the launch of the new programme in 2012. Recruitment of this cohort has now resumed.
SAILI has made significant progress in identifying key analytical elements and data necessary in identifying high performing schools beyond Grade 12 performance data which would benefit other SEEDS partners and could be developed into a major resource with additional input and discussion.
SAILI’s new scholarship programme offers potential systemic impact on the schooling system on behalf of its student constituency – black, African, poor, township, vernacular-speaking senior phase learners - in ways not initially anticipated by SAILI or partners including the opening-up of formerly Coloured schools for black African-language speaking students and, potentially, effective cross-subsidisation of additional teaching staff in participating schools.
SCIFESTAFRICA
SCIFESTAFRICA is the only partner in the initiative specialising in the promotion of Science awareness.
SciFest Africa’s project activities include “the biggest science festival in sub-Saharan Africa”, the flagship seven-day National Festival of Science held each March in Grahamstown. This year’s conference, under the ‘Science across cultures’ theme, “highlighted what makes us human, what makes us different, the contribution of different cultures to science and science education, and science practiced across cultures.” The festival offered over 600 events and activities and attracted 65,000 visitors.
SciFest Africa also presents a range of outreach programmes, including SciFest Africa-on-the-Road an annual 14-day tour with a top scientist or educational theatre production through one or more provinces reaching some 6 000 learners; SciFest Africa Deep Rural Programme which takes interactive Science programmes to historically disadvantaged schools; SciFest Africa Science Shows; National Science Week in the Eastern Cape annually has as a major component hands-on workshops and Science shows presented by a SciFest Africa team; and SciFest Africa Regional Festivals: three-day tours of workshops for primary school learners in the Eastern Province, Limpopo, Western Cape and the Northern Cape, North West and KwaZulu-Natal.
With the SEEDS project, SciFest Africa’s programmes are available in the Western Cape to the specialist Science and Mathematics partners. Annual activities are with audiences ranging from primary and secondary school learners to university students and adults and include twelve week-long tours of lectures, educational theatre, workshops and Science shows.
Through involvement in the SEEDS’ maths and science education projects, the SciFest Africa approach has become much more demand-driven and targeted. These elements have contributed to SciFest’s repositioning from a science awareness and science engagement public interest organisation, to supporting educators and learners in the classroom.
In 2010 SciFest Africa faced a challenge to 'the core business' – the national festival itself - which “almost didn’t happen” as no funder was available. Amongst other actions, SciFest Africa contacted the SEEDS management who saw the value of the festival to both science education and the consortium itself, and through the EKN, approved the use of SciFest’s unutilised funds of this purpose and agreed to approach the DST on its behalf. In the event, both SciFest Africa and SEEDS were able to leverage a distinctly challenging circumstance into an opportunity to promote science education and work more closely with the DST to extend its involvement in the Science Festival and public awareness of science more generally. The DST has provided ‘unprecedented support’ to SciFest from this point, including extensively utilising SciFest Africa’s services.
For SciFest this incident demonstrates one of the key advantages of working in a large consortium with significant resources and a large network.
Focus Area 1: Programme Assessment
The results of the MTR quantitative programme assessment for focus area 1 projects overall, reveal high levels of project satisfaction on the part of beneficiaries, whether learners or educators (exceptions were MSEP Educators (13%) and SCIMATHUS Learners (12%)). Educator and learners subject knowledge increased as did their confidence in teaching and studying. Levels of management support for SEEDS programmes were high. With the exception of MSEP participants, for most educators, the workshop and interaction times had been most suitable; as were workshop venues. Most expressed the view that they enjoy teaching more since participating in the programme. Similarly, the vast majority of learners enjoy their learning more since joining their different programmes. The most positive consequences of participation in the various programmes for educators were seen to be the workshop sessions, networking with other teachers, the wealth of new knowledge gained and the skills developed. Asked about what could be changed to make the various programmes more helpful, large proportions of both educators and learners said that nothing needed to be changed. In cases where respondents made comments, their desire for more contact with the programme emerged strongly.
Focus Area 2: Rural Education
CMGE
The Centre for Multigrade Education (CMGE) was established in the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa in 2009 with a SEEDS grant of R22m as “the only centre in Africa addressing the dire situation of rural education using multigrade education as a pedagogical solution and one which hopes to develop as a solution-based resource centre for Africa on multigrade (MG) education.”
The philosophy, methodologies and practices of multigrade education lie at CMGE’s core and drive the Centre and all its activities. CMGE faces a tough task convincing education policy makers, politicians, the teaching profession, and education researchers that MGE as phrased in this unique and innovative manner is the 21st century pedagogic panacea to the quality ‘learning and teaching’ challenges of rural schools particularly in early learning and Foundation phases.
The central place afforded ICT in CMGE’s approach – and its unique take on MG pedagogy in ICT in learning –is likewise innovative and critical to the wider debates on technology and innovation in education in which CMGE’s participation and research is increasingly recognised.
CMGE’s 2011 Vision Statement – “to combat poverty in the world by means of the establishment of an expert centre which will improve and distribute the knowledge of MGE” - reflects the Centre’s growing confidence and belief in MGE, the emerging MG ‘community of practice’ in which the Centre is playing a not-insubstantial role, CMGE’s growing research expertise in MGE and pedagogical practice, and to an extent its leadership role nationally, in sub-Saharan Africa, and internationally.
CMGE’s 2011 ‘Mission Statement’ is bold and ambitious: to strategically position the Centre as a credible, authoritative, MGE policy-making and standards-setting body. This emerging priority has sharpened and focussed the activities of CMGE. CMGE has four core aims: Effective capturing and collecting of relevant data on the domains of MGE (Classroom management techniques; Instructional strategies; Planning the curriculum; Instructional materials; School and community); Design, compare and develop the multigrade curriculum through research; Production and creation of material, training and support of teachers and curriculum and didactical management; The development and creation of curriculum policies, models and frameworks.
CMGE is a picture of an active and dynamic Centre effectively promoting MG education on a number of fronts. The Project on Multigrade Pedagogy Development has currently circulated a discussion document to stakeholders to kick-start development of a framework of standards for a pedagogy for multigrade education for quality education and learning “as a basis for a discussion about how the community will look like in future and how children can help to create such a community and how to live in it.” The research programme of the CMGE focuses on: multigrade pedagogy; Multigrade curriculum; Multigrade teaching and learning materials; and Teacher training. There are 7 MG Demo Schools in the Wellington/Paarl area. In ICT, CMGE is working with Moraka Institute (DST) to develop learning materials for use with the new technology of smart phones, laptops, hand-held readers etc so that learners have/can access in a MG context to a wealthy of resources that can be accessed through a sound pedagogical framework. CMGE is concerned that ICT, as with other innovations, will bypass rural schools, so CMGE wants rural schools to lead in piloting ICT in education in the country. CMGE believes too that the pedagogy of MG especially supports ICT innovation and can accelerate its uptake and impact. Three CMGE facilitators – all with Doctorates in MG - do training in areas of ECD: they work with 13 rural MG ECD schools to establish a workable solution to the problems in obtaining ECD training and qualifications. CMGE develops learning material for in-classroom use in maths, language and world orientation, ‘repackaging’ or “‘unwrapping the curriculum’ and identifying the relevant parts so that everyone can understand it.”: CMGE is planning to hold an African Conference on Multigrade Education in December 2012, to follow-up on its highly successful 2010 international conference on MGE.
Focus Area 2: Programme Assessment
Almost two-thirds of participants in the CMGE ACE programme strongly agreed that they had enjoyed participation; 97% were of the view that their participation in the CMGE ACE programme had increased their subject content knowledge; 94% had become more confident in their teaching; and 97% that the syllabus content covered by ACE is relevant to the curriculum. Most indicated that they had used the teaching materials supplied by the programme in their teaching since participating in the ACE (92%); and that the teaching methodologies demonstrated had been extremely helpful (97%). A high proportion had had contact with teachers at other schools in the project (81%); and almost all were of the view that multigrade education is helpful to their teaching (95%). More than four-fifths (81%) said that the management at their school is fully supportive of the CMGE ACE programme. More than two-fifths (42%) said that teachers at their school who are not in the programme feel marginalised. For most participants, the workshop and interaction times had been most suitable (82%); as had been the workshop venue (78%). A heartening 87% expressed the view that they enjoy teaching more since participating in the ACE programme. CMGE has developed good relations with District Officials, both in the local area where the Centre is based, and more widely with provincial officials where the bulk of the Centre’s training is taking place, and with the National Departments of Basic Education and the DST. Challenges facing the project at this juncture include: need for HEI’s to include MG and more rural components in pre-service courses and in education faculties; use of ITC in the classroom as part of pre-service training; numbers of pre-service teachers with training in MG; teachers morale and quality in small rural schools; psychosocial and physical health of rural children (many kids in the Western Cape suffer from foetal alcohol syndrome); Drop-out rates in small rural MG schools; teaching of reading skills in rural schools; curriculum changes especially in ECD; provincial policies on closure of small schools
Focus Area 3: Schools as Hubs of Lifelong Learning
EMEP
The overall goal of the SCHOOLS AS HUBS OF LEARNING, RECREATION, AND SUPPORT: THE EXTRA-MURAL EDUCATION PROJECT (EMEP) is “growing a seedbed of demonstration schools in the most challenged districts as effective and dynamic developmental hubs by means of an effective, extended programme of extra-murals.” Funds allocated to this focus area amount to R18m, 12% of the total project funds.
EMEP adopts and showcases a ‘Whole School’ approach, effectively supporting systemic educational reforms, and bottom-up school-based innovation. EMEP understanding of Whole School/Community School international best practice is that there are four or five critical success factors for whole school change, including embedded teacher time and planning; support time in the classroom; academic support; extended learning blocks but the most important factor are extra-murals, what the project refers to as ‘expanded opportunities’ .
EMEPs action-learning methodology, combined with rigorous and regular external evaluations, brings a dynamic element to the project which is shaping EMEP’s programme model and approach in the pilot.
Critical element in EMEP is the partnership with government. At the time of receiving SEEDS funding EMEP had an agreement with NDE (now NDBE) for piloting and testing a five-phase ‘training and support approach’ to Whole School Development with a large group of schools in the province. District Offices – “the real power in the province’s schools” – have been solidly supportive of EMEP’s work.
‘Beyond the School Wall- Developing Extra-Mural Opportunities’ programme’, is EMEPs entry-level, whole-school training-and-support programme for two extra-mural development practitioners (EMDP’s) from each participating school “ready, willing, and able to take on (envisage, plan, and deliver) an extra-mural strategy for curricular and child development and towards parent and community involvement, and to use their resources (people, time, facilities, services) maximally to do so.” Not just EMDPs though: with the School Management Team (principal and vice-principal), the entire staffroom, the School Governing Body (SGB), and a five-member EM Management Team. With two intakes in total (2008, 2009), 38 schools have participated in the programme. With the co-operation of District Offices, these EMEP schools are drawn primarily from disadvantaged school districts in Cape Town’s South and East Metropoles and rural education districts of Overberg, Cape Winelands, and West Coast.
‘The Network Programme’ is the second ‘leg’ of EMEP’s partnership with SEEDS. It supports a growing network of practicing schools and practitioners (38 schools now in the Network Programme) to apply their training on-site and share practice with each other. Work has comprised a range of learning forums, workshops, short courses, cluster visits, and most recently, as part of the new 'consolidation phase', on-site support visits. Broadly, these processes continue to support the schools to gain further traction for the EMEP Programme, within each of its four legs - play, games, and sport, arts and crafts, academic support, like homework, reading, maths, and science clubs, and health and well-being, They provide forums and facilitation for the schools to share, build, and spread good practice (around growing their schools extra-murally as community hubs) both within their district clusters and in the wider network and support schools to collaborate in joint projects/activities within and across their various groups.
Consolidation phase activities involve a new level of scale for school-based support by EMEP, in each of 38 schools, with multiple and multi-varied activities including school organisational analyses and interactive on-site training, group work, and discussion-based support by EMEP practitioners delivered in each of 38 schools to the SMT, entire staff, EMDPs and the EMMT, the SGB and community organisations, in each. Key components including working with practitioners, on-going discussions with schools, and school situational analyses, described in the full report
Out of this phase of consolidation, designed to further embed change in schools through OD, EMEP will identify a small number of ‘demonstration schools’ (“Continuous Development Programme Schools”) which EMEP will support to serve as case studies of ‘model schools’ to the WCED and the DBE of Whole School Development, of schools with their own agency and skills who have successfully initiated and run their own training and development initiatives.
Evaluating the impact of EMEP’s programme overall on participating schools would reveal a very mixed, perhaps disappointing, picture, and to be truthful so would the data on student’s performance. However, EMEP’s project is about demonstrating something new or, rather, what can happen given a certain set of circumstances, as opposed to trying to show what will work or not because of the conditions, a more appropriate success indicator for EMEP are the small number of performing schools in underprivileged areas that have demonstrated the will and the motivation to change their practice despite their obvious disadvantages and challenges, hence the importance of the pilot case study demonstration schools – EMEP’s ‘seed-bed’.
Even the best performing EMEP schools continue to experience challenges and constraints even as they participate in the programme, including: appointment of new principals; expanded grades on offer; infrastructural and other system changes; unexpectedly poor results at matric level; teacher turnover and the like. Poor selection processes for participating schools, including inclusion of non-performing Dinaledi schools by District Officials also has resulted in sometimes severe in-school management and organisation dysfunction. EMEPs impressive network of supportive public and private service providers requires substantial and skilful handling. A further point is that principals are often unaware of the dangers of working with external partners without having addressed the issue of organisational – extra-mural – support.
Focus Area 3: Programme Assessment
Almost all learners who participated in EMEP strongly agreed (69%) or agreed (24%) that they had enjoyed this participation, as did all educators (71% and 29% respectively). The vast majority (97%) of learners indicated that their participation had motivated them to go to school and 97% of the educators said it had made them more aware of the importance of extra-mural education. More than three-quarters (77%) of learners said that since participating in EMEP, they had become more confident in their studies; and that the extra-mural programme was relevant to their lives (78%). Similarly, 93% of teachers had become more confident in their extra-mural teaching and mentoring; and 97% felt that the material covered in EMEP is relevant to promoting extra-mural activities at their schools. More than four-fifths of EMEP learners said that the programme had helped them to become a better person (82%); and that they liked the way that extra-mural activities are run at their school (85%). Similarly, 85% of learners and 87% of teachers thought that visits to their school by EMEP people are helpful to them and to the school; and most (teachers 72%; learners 82%) were of the view that that the principal and teachers at their school were fully supportive of EMEP. Almost three-quarters (71%) of the EMEP teachers have used the support materials frequently since participating in EMEP and 97% are of the view that the methodologies demonstrated are extremely helpful. Forty percent of EMEP teachers have regular contact with EMEP teachers at other schools. Most (90%) of teachers say the training session times are suitable as do 97% in respect of the training session venues. More than three-quarters (77%) of the EMEP teachers enjoy teaching more since attending the training sessions. More than three-quarters (77%) of learners would not like to leave their school because the extra-murals are so good; and almost three-quarters (74%) enjoy extra-murals more since their school started EMEP.
Focus Area 4: HIV/AIDS Preventative and Risk Reduction Support
The SEEDS programme rolls-out the WESTERN CAPE GENERATION OF LEADERS DISCOVERED PEER EDUCATION ROLL-OUT PROJECT of the GOLD PEER EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT AGENCY (GOLD) in underprivileged communities in the Western Cape. Funds allocated to this focus area amount to R15m, 10% of the total project funds.
The primary objective is to reduce youth risk behaviour, thereby bringing about a decrease in the rate of new HIV infections among youth aged ten to twenty four years in the Western Cape. GOLD follows a behaviour-change cascade methodology: identifying youth leaders in peer groups recruited and their talents channelled positively on strategic tasks
This WC GOLD project is part of a larger GOLD initiative begun in 2004. In December 2006 the implementation of GOLD Peer Education in South Africa and Botswana was awarded the Commonwealth Education Good Practice Award for helping education in difficult circumstances. The Western Cape GOLD Programme played a significant role in contributing to the winning of the award and should receive much of the credit for this achievement
With SEEDS support, the GOLD Agency Head Office provides training materials, strategy, funding, resource mobilisation etc. to the new WC Field Office. With the WC, there are now three GOLD Field Offices in the Southern African region, with an International Field Manager straddling HO and the field offices. There is a five-year Peer Educator Programme for youths, and a one-year Master Peer Educator Programme (accreditation has been applied for).
The project’s target audiences are staff from implementing organisations, school educators if working in schools, and youth, both those attending or not attending school. Staff of implementing organisations include community leaders that are adult programme managers and out of school facilitators that work with adolescents in areas with: high incidence of HIV, high prevalence of HIV and AIDS, high numbers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), lack of adult role models, and high incidence of youth risky behaviour. Youth beneficiaries are adolescent leaders and their peers between the ages of ten and twenty four in and out of schools in these target communities.
In the GOLD project, trained GOLD peer facilitator’s work in schools or community institutions implementing the GOLD programme on behalf of recruited local community development organisations (Implementing Organisations –IOs) or schools - both critical ‘gateways’ to the local community/neighbourhood and important sites of learning.
Within schools, educators are important to the success of GOLD’s programmes: “their roles in supporting peer educators in the school system are key to peer educators reaching peers at schools.” However, educators, or for that matter, school participation for the GOLD programme it has emerged through the SEEDS experience, is not absolutely critical to success since peer influence, not formal peer training, is core to the programme and this can occur as much within as beyond a formal institutional setting.
In the project under review, IO-employed peer facilitators, themselves former peer educators in the age range 20 to 30 years, target and work with young people in and out of school to realise their responsibilities as Africa’s “future pioneers” or next generation leaders. Through a regular structured programme youth are encouraged to “speak out” on issues of HIV/AIDS, provide social support to peers in the context of poor and marginal communities, develop life vision and purpose in the face of drugs, alcohol, gangs, early pregnancy, gender violence, family violence etc, focus on completing schooling, study, make positive career decisions and enhance opportunities for future life-long learning. These outcomes are regularly (and impressively) assessed by the GOLD HO. The GOLD programme is a wide-ranging and long-term intervention looking to develop strategic changes in reduction of youth risk behaviours/HIV infections, communities supporting families and youth (caring behaviour, access to social support, health and security), and developing social capital for social development. This means that the GOLD model is neither simple nor cheap – however the programme’s rigorous M&E provides a demonstrable public record of positive results which few, if any peer review programmes in the country can match.
From the outset GOLD’s assumptions for the success of the project in the WC were two-fold, namely ‘that viable community organisations working with youth exist and are able to implement the GOLD programme in the identified priority geographic locations’, and ‘that the WCED and WCDOH continue to endorse the GOLD programme as a needed HIV/AIDS intervention in schools and their communities.’ Unfortunately neither of these assumptions have turned out to be true and as a result the numbers of IO’s and PE’s involved with the WC GOLD programme have dropped considerably since SEEDS project inception: in 2009 GOLD in WC had 14 IOs and 4845 PEs; in 2010 8 with 3,700 PEs; and in 2011, there were 5 IOs (two in Somerset West, two in Gugulethu/Khayelitsha, 1 in Kraaifontein) with 1337 PE’s.
The rapid loss of traction by GOLD in ‘certain (but not all) priority geographic locations’ is in most respects traceable, according to GOLD, to the political shift in the province: within weeks of the new Democratic Alliance-led government taking control of the provincial administration, the WCED announced a major shake-up of school-based programmes in the provincial schools, with schools being instructed not to allow NGOs access to schools. This had a major impact on the GOLD programme as schools (through which GOLD WC delivered its programme) were forced to withdraw from the Programme and PF’s were refused access to learners, formal MoU’s with GOLD notwithstanding.
GOLD was also excluded from the 2010 DSD and DoH’s HIV/AIDS Global Fund Application. In addition, with the new Global Fund money, the province appointed a new service provider to enter the peer education space, with funds to spare. Only an advance on SEEDS funds has allowed GOLD to continue to roll-out its SEEDS project in the WC. For GOLD’s IO’s, the experience has been a sobering one; some have dropped out of programme; others have not. The experience ironically resulted in positive reflection on the programme’s many relative strengths and a growing sense of collective responsibility and buy-in from IO’s
The negative impact of the DoH Global Fund tender process and the subsequent need to shift programmes from School to Community based has meant that the first 6 months of 2011 have presented both GOLD and their IO’s with many challenges.
Whilst the scale of the project impact in the WC has undoubtedly being significantly diminished for reasons just discussed, the GOLD Programme and the administration thereof appears not to have suffered. For one, GOLD’s rigorous approach to quality continues to be “widely acknowledged” by local community and school project stakeholders. GOLD derived benefit from the flexibility shown by the SEEDS management in supporting the organisation through the period of provincial restructuring and with on-going SEEDS funding in line with the present budget the project can continue until 2012, albeit on a diminished scale.
Focus Area 4: Programme Assessment
Although the majority of learners and educators who had participated in the GOLD programme strongly agreed that they had enjoyed their participation, the proportion of strong agreement was higher amongst educators (91%) than learners (77%). The vast majority of learners (94%), and all of the facilitators, who participated said that the programme had made them more aware of the importance of peer education. Similarly, 91% of learners and 100% of facilitators had become more confident in peer education since their participation in the GPEP. Most learners (83%) and all facilitators said that the material covered in the GPEP is relevant to promoting their skills as a peer educator or facilitator of peer educators, respectively. Almost two-thirds (65%) of learners and 100% of facilitators indicated that they had made use of the support materials frequently since participating in the GPEP. Most (learners 86%; facilitators 100%) also said that the methods demonstrated are extremely helpful in their work with their peers. The majority (91%) of facilitators and more than three-quarters (77%) of learners have regular contact with other peer facilitators or peer educators respectively. Visits to the school or centre by GOLD facilitators are seen to be helpful by 89% of learners and all educators. Although all facilitators perceive that the management at their schools is fully supportive of the GPEP, this is the perception of only two-thirds (67%) of learner peer educators. Sizeable proportions of both learners (33%) and facilitators (44%) are of the view that people at their schools who are not involved in the GOLD programme feel “left out”. Training session times have been most suitable to 85% of learners and all facilitators; as have training session venues to 73% of learners and all facilitators. All facilitators (100%) and most learners (90%) say that they enjoy peer education more since attending the GPEP training sessions.
Focus Area 5: Collaboration and Innovation
A nascent ‘community of practice’ is taking form, with a number of opportunities are noted for ‘sharing’ of ‘knowledge, methods and practice’ between members. The SEEDS management structure, with some input from the chair and the project manager, has given rise to what one might call ‘structured blanket sharing’, through participation in Project Forums largely characterised by inputs that take the form of project report-backs and presentation of research. Further clarification, discussion and distillation of these latter elements into an overarching set of learnings that can be shared across the SEEDS consortium, and more widely with specific communities of practice, is not yet evident but promises to be a rich area of future activity for the SEEDS consortium as a whole.
The MTR reveals a set of common core/central issues confronting participating organisations as they seek to complement, support or fill gaps in formal government programmes. In addition there is growing clarity with respect to emerging ‘bottom-line’ priorities that are required for successful programming, product innovation, and piloting and take-up of systemic whole school development support – including minimum norms and standards that are required to sustain sustainable and effective professional development, curriculum materials and learning and teaching support and whole school organisational reform. Further discussion and development of these issues within the consortium, as well as with the wider communities of practice in the province and nationally (including with the major education stakeholder in the province, the PDE), through enhanced engagement and debate will further promote the adoption of ‘best practice reform’ both within SEEDS as well as across the wider communities of practice.
There are still challenges to overcome in partners voluntarily talking responsibility for ensuring that their activities and their on-going learnings are regularly communicated with the SEEDS management, and hence fully reflected in SEEDS newsletters and on the project website. There is a scope to expand this flow of information between and across the projects through development of a more integrated and interactive website for improved data management and an enhanced platform for communication.
Obstacles to formal collaboration aside, the overwhelmingly impression we gained in the MTR was that partners generally remain optimistic and positive in their attitudes towards the SEEDS programme and their consortium colleagues.
A more fully developed SEEDS communication strategy, which includes in its ambit consideration of a set of defined, new activities (with or without a budget), as well as agreement on the key actions to be taken on the part of SEEDS partners in the various practice or action-areas together with additional support to be provided by the SEEDS management would be a critical intervention to advance the cause of collaboration without necessitating budget revisions. Such a strategy could reshape existing spontaneous collaboration amongst SEEDS partners into a more structured, formal and output-centred programme of engagement and clarify elements critical to a common multi-disciplinary whole-school ‘SEEDS’ approach’ in the key Focus Areas or in the new areas of interest and importance (for example in the use of ICT in learning and teaching, or holistic whole-school based approaches to in-service professional development and support and so on).
Linking a new communication strategy to an interactive web-presence would also ‘encourage integration of knowledge, method and practice that will lead to a community of practice within the consortium and thus influence project implementation and permeate the individual institutions/organisations in order for them to respond to the transformational policy imperatives.’
In furthering collaboration in the future, some partners support the wording and spirit of the original Project Proposal calling for a single collaborative SEEDS intervention in a specific number of schools, or across schools in various phases in a geographic area, a proposal which was exhaustively discussed at the programme outset but then rejected as impractical for a number of reasons already discussed.
Others however focus on promoting collaboration such that the strategic lessons, norms and standards, and actions that are emerging as critical success factors in enhancing reforms in the future, are identified and drawn out and then embedded, together with other innovative practices and strategies for effective implementation, more deeply in the methodology of the consortium partners.
These latter suggestions amount to a series of powerful and potentially transformative proposals that could kick-start the development of a collaborative SEEDS ‘model’ (not collaborative project) which by definition would address the multi-sectoral, developmental and systemic outcomes envisaged in the SEEDS programme document.
Focus Area 6: Western Cape Model of Whole-School and Community Development
There is some confusion amongst the partners as to whether the aim of Focus area 6 is to take the form of modelling (i.e. developing and refining) an overarching ‘SEEDS approach’, or if the partners are still required to develop a collaborative project. In this, we are guided by the outcome of the initial discussion early in the project which resolved not to pursue or require a collaborative project as an outcome but rather to work towards development of a set of systemically inclined, multidisciplinary informed guidelines or approaches which if followed would strengthen the movement for whole school and community based development in the province, and be applicable across the various areas of practice as the major programme outcome.
In part, the concern/frustration expressed by some consortium members as to whether a SEEDS model can be developed can be seen as anticipatory of the consortium as a collective being unable ultimately to surmount the various challenges to collaborative work, thus challenging a key value and motivation underpinning the SEEDS initiative.
Nonetheless there is little doubt that such fears can be overcome – and are already being overcome – and that with greater attention and focus on dialogue, sharing and engagement in and across areas of practice, the SEEDS partners– NPOs and higher education institutions– are fully capable developing a “multi-disciplinary partnership to achieve widespread change through emerging synergies in the knowledge economy and culture of learning.”
The consortium will need to pay some attention however to evolving some specific end-term goals which could:
embrace activities that will actively promote the production (publication) of a common SEEDS model within a practical and time-bound framework
enhance development of more pervasive and sustained relationships amongst the SEEDS members particularly in identified priority practice areas,
renew commitment to this common (as opposed to individual project or organisational) programme outcome and more collaborative and mutually supportive leadership in this respect,
pay greater attention to planning for specific opportunities and occasions to engage, direct and perhaps, moderate, discussions in areas of practice around systemic and multidisciplinary elements with other practitioners within the province, nationally and internationally,
develop and implement a more open, ongoing communication platform for data sharing, interactive engagement and networking at all levels.
In formal organisational terms these challenges involve the shift from a co-operative mode of operation – where relations are informal, goals are not defined jointly, there is no joint planning, and information is shared as needed (which we would argue where SEEDS’s operative logic is at present) - towards a collaborative mode with its utilitarian promise of jointly working together, sharing commitment and goals, shared leadership resources, risk, control and results, and undoubted higher intensity.
An alternative reading of the contemporary concept of ‘collaboration’ lies in its very questioning of the concept’s component elements and the sentiments which sustain collaborative effort: in this reading, “collaboration does not take place for sentimental reasons… it arises out of pure self interest… [as] a performative and transformative process”; individuals “will rely on one another the more they chase their own interests [with] mutual dependence arising through the pursuit of their own agenda’s. Exchange between them then becomes an effect of necessity rather than one of mutuality, identification or desire.”
These insights are introduced here to provide some initial critical grist to the task that awaits the consortium in its own critical reflection on its collaborative effort in education which will inform its own ‘model making’, particularly in its relation to what critical theorists call “the absolutistic power of organisation”, that is, to the institutional stakeholders in education whose ‘interests’ the consortium is committed to work jointly towards even as it addresses the emancipatory and democratising dimensions of education.
This self-reflective process invites organisations and institutions to turn the critical gaze on their own practices and ask what light their answers throw on the current debates in education in the province, the country or elsewhere, where all is fluidity and change at this juncture.
This challenge asks whether and how and if the consortium, in the time remaining, can successfully bring together the elements of both an evolving, transformative and developmentally effective and sustainable pedagogy, curriculum and practice for schools, education institutions and communities, with the set of (emerging) organisational practices and policies embedded in the educational system, bringing with it (or illuminating possibilities for) the effective promotion of sustainable and widespread systemic change?
These are open ended questions at this point, and challenging ones indeed, which the consortium can begin to address beginning by initiating discussion and input from a range of experts and practitioners locally and abroad on this very issue.
Elements of this transformative multi-disciplinary ‘model’ would appear at this stage to consist not in refining existing SEEDS interventions, singly in or combination (though this should not be ruled out) but rather in beginning to delineating and distil best practice principles in and across the areas of focus that support and promote innovative, dynamic and transformational collaborative practices – and reflecting on the most effective platforms for leveraging and sharing such principles and practices across a growing community of practice – the project’s injunction is to be systemically focussed and impact driven.
How it can do this, the tools and techniques that are available, including the opportunities provided through ICT, social media and other online innovations, and the most appropriate methodologies will all need to be a part of this discussion.
It seems useful at this point where partners are beginning to experience and raise some of these emerging issues and challenges in their own professional practice and projects, to reflect once again on the dimensions and urgency of the educational challenges that the consortium saw as critical in December 2008 in developing such a best practice model when SEEDS was launched.
Clearly no single SEEDS project, or combination of projects, can and will address or respond to any one or all of these challenges in such a way as to make a measurable mark on any one of these provincial, indeed national challenges. However, in developing an effective dynamic model of whole school and community development which self-consciously promotes a culture of open and full communication, dedication to service and mobilisation of volunteerism and other forms of resource mobilisation, more open sharing of innovative applications and programmes for wider distribution and duplication, development of common data resources accessible to all, promotion of ‘cooperative competition’ in drawing in potential service providers to address pervasive service gaps and other shocking anomalies which existing projects cannot themselves address, together with widespread attribution for good ideas and other best practices which support sharing of ideas, some substantive progress can be achieved.
The consortium will have to apply its mind as to the most appropriate model to leveraging the SEEDS programme to a position where the partners, with assistance and guidance from the SEEDS management are able to collectively play this dynamic role, deploy resources that will be required to take the programme to the next level and, most critically, assist in finding the expertise and experience that will required for this final phase of the programme.
Focus Area 7: Communication, Advocacy and building the Western Cape Knowledge Economy
Sharing with audiences within and outside South Africa by SEEDS partners is already taking place as an activity, explicit or otherwise, in each organisation and institution: there is no lack of organisations ‘sharing’, but there is a lack of collective impact in sharing which as we understand is one of the primary goals of this Focus Area.
Likewise, exploring research opportunities to build the knowledge economy through SEEDS – an activity actively being pursued by the project manager – would be much enhanced, and given greater credibility if packaged more coherently within the emerging priorities and outlines of a distinctive ‘SEEDS model’ as we discussed in the previous chapter.
The same observation above applies with respect to a more effective SEEDS collaboration with provincial and national role players, stakeholders in other African countries and internationally.
The consortium’s aims and outcomes, according to the M&E Framework, are greater than the sum of the projects: the vision is for the projects to have a joint impact on the education and learning landscape of the Western Cape beyond individual efforts. Positive programme impacts beyond those anticipated (and specified) in the individual project documents include supporting government education and human resource policies and programmes, specifically the national curriculum, schooling and related (e.g. HIV/AIDS) polices and legislation, and stimulating and enabling lifelong learning in disadvantaged and marginalised contexts.
These constitute pressing and dynamics issues which necessitate a much higher level of engagement at the level of policy and practice from the consortium partners through SEEDS than is now evident.
The budget makes provision for further staff in the SEEDS office as a first step towards opening this space for greater collaboration along the lines proposed– consideration should be given to the options available for incentivising the consortium partners themselves to devote high-level management time and resources to addressing the framework requirements, strategy and practical inputs that will be needed to transform this nine project cooperative initiative into a truly collaborative and dynamic joint venture.
Attention to opportunities for initiating sharing of project findings in respect of their impact on and challenges faced in implementing new and innovative approaches and programmes within the primary domain or areas of practice in which the projects are located is a critical area. The primary purpose should not be seen necessarily as enhanced accountability or transparency (though these elements are obviously extremely important) but rather as a requirement for a far greater level of critical engagement with the wider body of practice, with stakeholders, experts, communities, parents, the private sector, NGOs and other interests than is presently evident. It is anticipated that, following agreement on a series of activities including roundtables, conferences, workshops, seminars etc, opportunities will arise to develop publications based on inputs and research arising from the projects, ongoing programme research, and inputs from non-SEEDS practitioners should arise which in addition to populating a revamped interactive SEEDS website, will drive and shape the contribution of the SEEDS’s programme in key domains and new areas of practice, perhaps resulting in publication of a final programme report.
