Zwelibangile 30 July 2015
A 6:45 start was needed to get to Zwelibangile by 08:00. Despite this we were 15 minutes late due to poor road conditions. The school is set in a valley at the bottom of a small pass. On route we approached a black Toyota Corolla which reached the school ahead of us. We found the approach to the school to be very entertaining as the Toyota navigated across a large donga, around grassy patches and wide detours to avoid the unmaintained dirt tracks which were basically impassable even with a high clearance vehicle. When in Rome do as they Romans do – so we followed the Toyota.
The approach to the school
Observation of a Hydrogen Fuel Cell
A learner preparing a thank you letter.
Soon after arrival we had both sessions well underway and within 45 minutes the training was over. Three learners volunteered to write the letters and they were primed as to what to write. Again we hit the snag of learners who were not confident to write in English and the letter writing took over an hour to complete with many repeat attempts. It was important for the learners to write the letters and not just to have the contents dictated to them. This meant that we left the school just before 10:00.
There was evidence of previous attempts to assist the school with the installation of a large solar panel to power the buildings. Sadly the only thing left was the framework to hold the solar panels. These frames were evident at several other schools in the area.
A teacher present in the demonstrations was busy marking Mathematics workbooks from the learners. When approached she confirmed that every Monday all Mathematics teachers are out of the classroom receiving extra training which they then implemented for the remainder of the week. This is as a result of the country being ranked the lowest in the world with respect to literacy and numeracy out of 148 countries.
Zigudu 30 July 2015
The road to Zigudu goes from bad to worse for the last 5km necessitating low gear for a significant portion of the journey as there are numerous outcrops of rocks embedded into the road. The school itself is located in a valley and was part of a Catholic Mission Station.
The school forms part of a Catholic Mission Station
On arrival just after 10:00 the Principal informed us that the school was busy feeding the learners, including the staff, with a meal of rice and chicken pieces. This was all orderly and we waited for well over an hour for all classes to be fed. In retrospect we estimated that the school stops for almost 2 hours a day to allow for the learners to be fed. If this is repeated every day it soon adds up to a significant amount of teaching time that is lost each week.
On Fridays the schools stop at 12:00 to allow the classrooms to be cleaned by the learners – there are no cleaning staff attached to the schools. This leaves less than 3 hours of possible teaching time every Friday and not much more during the rest of the week. There is no apparent pressure for teaching and learning to take place to the detriment of each and every learner.
Esme made use of the opportunity with the Grade 4 and 5 classes finishing earlier and managed to get started with a very exciting lesson using the Duplo on the shade cloth in the sun. The Clean Energy session followed soon after with a long wait for the letters to be written. The quality of the contents and the time taken to complete appears to be a function of the distance from Cofimvaba where the first schools were very positive while the more distant schools battled to complete this exercise.
Sintile 30 July 2015
The road trip to Sintile was a further 5km from Zigudu to make the 12:00 appointment. The school is on the outskirts of a small community and serves the needs of learners from Grades 1-9. On a previous trip I had noticed teenagers walking up the road in the mornings and down again in the afternoons when it dawned on me that learners in Grades 10-12 had to attend school in another community for three or more years necessitating walking each day to and from school.
Poor road conditions leading to the Sintele community
Learners using tablets to record the lesson
A Hydrogen Fuel Cell in action
Handing over equipment to Mrs Gcobo
Together we can make a difference
We were warmly greeted by a member of the School Governing Body as most of the teachers were attending meetings in Cofimvaba. It is not uncommon for school time to be used for such activities at the expense of teaching. This meant that our visit filled an essential gap in the learning program for the Grade 4-5 learners for Duplo and the Grades 6-9 learners participating in the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Demonstrations.
The Nciba circuit was selected to participate in the Information Communication Technology for Rural Education and Development (ICT4RED) project. This included equipping some 18 schools in the circuit with basic tablets connected to a WiFi. Three schools, Mvuzo, St Marks and Arthur Mfebe were also equipped with fully operational Hydrogen Fuel Cells to charge these tablets in the afternoons and evenings.
The Hydrogen Fuel Cell demonstrations were filmed using several tablets where hopefully they will be able to revisit the demonstrations during class at a later stage.
The writing of the thank you letters was particularly poor at this school as the learners battled to complete the exercise. One has to bear in mind that learners in these communities are only taught English from Grade 4 onwards. Considering the quantity and quality of teaching in these schools it is no wonder that the outputs are so poor.
It was with a sad heart that we said goodbye to this community after visiting 40 schools and interacting with over 4 000 learners with over 80 demonstrations in clean energy. There is evidence of a return on investment where some of the principals had reported an improvement in the science results. This can potentially be attributed to a change in attitude on the part of the learners associated with the Anglo American Platinum funded initiative.
The challenge is now to build on the lessons learned and continue to build capacity in other communities to initiate a pipeline for clean energy especially in the area of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Innovation (STEMI).