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How Tech Is Transforming Teaching In a South African Township
An anonymous reader writes: The founders of the African School for Excellence have an ambitious goal — nothing less than redefining low cost, scalable teaching that brings international standards to the poorest schools in Africa. Their first model school is off to a good start: in just 18 months, all grade 9 students are achieving scores higher than 50% on Cambridge Curriculum Checkpoint tests, and only one student scored less than 50% in math. The national average score in math is 13%. The school relies on a locally designed piece of marking software to function. Their teach-to-pupil ratios are not great, but the teachers are committed to using technology to stretch themselves as far as they can. What's most remarkable is that the school's running costs are already half the cost of a traditional government school, and the quality of education is much, much better. All this, and they're only a year and a half into the program.
Ubiquitous good education will do the world a lot of good.
At first I thought this is impossible, but then I found this: (Warning, PDF) http://www.education.gov.za/Li... This is a report on a standardised nation wide test. The average for grade 9 math is indeed ~13%.
One of the primary goals is to foster curiosity in the kids (which is essentially internal motivation, one of the strongest forms).
The kids often work in groups on tasks that are slightly above their current skill level, which teaches them cooperation and problem-solving.
Teachers mainly come in to fill in gaps by answering questions and summarize what the kids learn.
Then the kids spend time on Khan Academy or similar doing tests to make sure they mastered the subject.
It would be interesting to see which of the elements actually helps the most - I would say it's not the "PeerMarker" software that lets pupils compare two essays and show which one is better using a slider (no written feedback on students' written assignment? that must hurt the learning, although it's understandable given the lack of teachers), but a breakdown of the other elements would be very interesting. Too bad a lot of the article focuses on math, it would be interesting to see more detail e.g. about writing.
It's not the technology what's helping those kids, but teachers. Appreciating kids, and encouraging them, and making them feel special and motivated. They could have done it the same with just pen and pencil.
Remarking the use of technology completely misses the point.
Computers are great tools for communication, and thus only work when you have something to communicate. Also they used to serve as a tool for inspiration, although that aspect is kind of wearing out. Kids play less and less with their computers, and more a more with cell phones.
the school's running costs are already half the cost of a traditional government school, and the quality of education is much, much better.
The government will never stand for this sort of nonsense. It requires people to be as dumb as possible (to continue voting them into power), while having a fraction of the population being able to be nominally employed (taxes, to pay government officials' lavish salaries and benefits), while enough remain unemployable ("long live the struggle!").
On a less sarcastic (not less serious) note: I believe that the population growth rate in SA outstrips the rate at which new schools are being built. Hence some investment firms see education (private schools and even homeschooling systems) as a viable niche market.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
International Standards eh? Like my company management is always droning on about "World Standards". Actually, if you take the average of "International" quality standards, it's shit.
They just don't have the organisational history and experience.
When educational programs first start they almost always have better than average results. Part of the reason is that the creators are committed to making the programs work. Once the programs are widely used, the results decline because the teachers are not as committed. While these results merit further trials, there is no guarantee that the results would be sustained when widely used.
When experimental educational programs first start they almost always have better than average results. Part of the reason is that the creators are committed to making the programs work and excellent teachers are employed. Once the programs are widely used, the results decline because the ordinary teachers are not as committed and capable. While these results merit further trials, there is no guarantee that the results would be sustained when widely used.
(in bold my inclusions)
I agree.
P.S. When i was a kid growing in Greece, 3 decades ago, my excellent public school (classes from 6 to 12 years old) was experimental -Montessori type- and managed by the Greek pedagogic academy, where older excellent teachers trained young teachers - then socialists come to power and the "every kid/teacher is equal/same" mantra ruined it...
I spent several years in the 90’s in the South African Education Department specifically trying to develop computer literacy programmes for some of the poorest schools in the country. At best they were a waste of time and money, not to mention some of the ministers later being arrested for pocketing department funds. At the time technology was seen as a panacea for the poor standard of “non-white” education. Of course technology introduces many complications of its own which only ended up compounding the already bad situation. More fundamental problems needed to be addressed such as basic nutrition; many young children did not have access to enough quality food. Also the school curriculum and teaching methods were dire and had not changed since the 60’s. So not surprisingly technology was never going to solve problems like that. Technology should only be introduced once the fundamentals are sound, this can be true of any situation but especially so for education.
Africa has its own unique problems but from the figures they quote in the article they might just be heading in the right direction.
The costing model presented in the linked to article does't add up. In any factory system you reduce costs by investing in upfront costs that reduce ongoing costs or just reduce ongoing costs. The major costs in schools are: buildings, labour (teachers, administrators, maintenance), materials (books, desks, scribblers, pens, pencils, chalk, black boards, whiteboards, art supplies, and technology (computers, internet connections, electricity, 3D printers,...). In the model featured in the article, technical demonstration machinery was donated. This is not scalable. Yes, the Gates Foundation will donate computers using Windows software, but GF is to soon run out of money ... that isn't sustainable. The school has a low teacher ratio (this reduces labour costs), but that appears to be replaced with 1) very low or unpaid assistants hoping to become teachers, 2) students who mark peer mark assignments, 3) automation of marking. 1) use of assistants isn't sustainable because this relies on ongoing slave labour, 2) peer marking is sustainable but lacks features of marking: quality feedback, ongoing motivation to perform well, and difficulty to monitor peer review performance. 3) marking automation is costly and not horizontally scalable. There is also a question concerning the cost of school buildings i.e., portable classrooms: were the portable classrooms no fee borrowed and not purchased?
Ultimately, education requires good teachers. I have experience both upper middle class school and inner city schools as my family's fortunes changed. Despite the supposed equal treatment of schools in Canada, there is a significant difference in the quality of experience between the two types of schools. The inner city schools get less enrichment programs, less technology, older facilities, and poorer teachers. This results is reduced student performance.
The reason why the ASE system is working is because it is focused, it attracted quality teachers, uses very cheap teaching assistants, and a large amount of donated time and technology from industry.
As a side note given a comment about MOOCs. The above reasoning can also be used to analyze why MOOCs are a failure. Only a small number of students are self starting enough to use the materials without appropriate teacher feedback and mentoring/motivation. The MOOCs that say they are successful are highly automated (expensive) and required either peer teaching and assessment or use of cheap or unpaid assistants (i.e., grad students)... again scalability issues. Often MOOCs are held up as being egalitarian, but in reality administration are using MOOCs as a method to reduce teaching costs on the backs of unpaid labour. Also, most MOOCs are highly focused on subject areas that are easy wins that don't require a lot of assessment or do not require significant mental challenge on the student's part.
Always remember, if someone is saying they have increased efficiency, look at the input costs. In the case of education: the major input costs are: buildings, labour, materials and technology. Where was the money saved in ASE?
While there's no doubt that technology does play a part in the success of that school, MHO is that it is wrong to attribute all the success on technology alone
The fact is that school got so much attention from so many people, so much so that the inventor of the 3D printed limb, Richard van As was present at that school
Or, in other words, it was Hawthorne Effect ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... ) that has contributed to the dramatic improvement on the performances of the students of that school
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !