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23 Jul 2010 09:53:00
A £20,000 grant will help ensure the University of Bedfordshire continues to aid teacher development in Malawi.
The British Council funding is going to the University’s partner institution in Africa, the St Joseph’s Teacher Training College, and is the start of a three-year project which starts this September.
It covers an initial period of a year but there is the opportunity to apply for future funding if the project is successful.
The grant award will pay the travel and accommodation costs for teachers from both Malawi and England to visit each other’s respective countries. Teachers from Malawi will first visit the University before return visits to Africa.
Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, has free primary education but there are often between 120-140 children in a class, with no desks. Rural St Joseph’s is in Dedza in central Malawi and its principal is Sister Elizabeth.
Previously, only PE teachers were being retrained and updated in the core curriculum by the University’s staff and students but this project will see this extended to Science, English, Maths and Life Skills as well.
Life Skills covers topics such as sexual health, nutrition and moral issues, while PE covers teamwork and leadership skills as well as a variety of sports.
All five subjects will be delivered in three-day sessions, repeated annually over the three years, with the first ones due in September and October.
Kate Jacques, the former Dean of the Faculty of Education and Sport at the Bedford campus, has visited Malawi on a couple of occasions and was instrumental in securing the grant.
She said: “The country, especially the rural areas of Malawi, has little infrastructure and needs our support. This is the opportunity to work with a particular college, St Joseph’s, which is progressive.
“It will also help us to understand their needs better when the teachers from Malawi visit England.
“Something might grow from the whole three-year project and even hopefully win a Government contract.”
Committed fundraising in recent years has seen both staff and students from the University visit Malawi. They first helped open a science laboratory in the country in Easter 2006 and it was then recognised there was a need for additional teacher training. Further successful visits at Easter time in both 2009 and earlier this year continued the relationship.
Latest news» 2010» July» Three-year project in Malawi to continue teacher training
