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News Briefs Online The Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development Vol. II ~ No. 6~ Nov./Dec. 2001 |
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Pennsylvanian Helps Improve Scientific Literacy in South Africa By CLAUDE R. MARX Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) _ For Dale Hunter, improving science and math education in South Africa is not just a way to transmit knowledge, it is also a means to reverse one of the legacies of apartheid. "Science and math can be scary for children, especially if there is no one around who understands it. And during apartheid, black teachers were poorly trained in general, especially in science so the children there need more people who can explain it," she said. To remedy that, the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania biology professor has used funds from a federal program to train 50 teachers and parents in South Africa's Free State Province. The teachers who have taken Hunter's four-day, 27-hour class have in turn trained about 365 more people. She started the program there in 1999. In 1990, the government began to dismantle apartheid, the system of government sanctioned racial segregation, and the process was almost completed when South Africa held multi-party elections in 1994. Hunter, a plant ecologist who earned her doctorate from the City University of New York, said the goal is not necessarily to create the next generation of scientists. She runs the program in conjunction with faculty members of the University of the Free State. "We want to increase access to jobs that require knowledge of science. Even someone who drives a UPS truck has to know some science and math. If the students do not have these skills, they will be permanently disadvantaged economically," she said. The instruction emphasizes a hands-on approach. To learn what makes airplanes fly, students are given pieces of paper and shown how wings are curved in a way that keep the plane aloft. The program is financed with a $100,000 grant from the United States Agency for International Development. In South Africa, funds come from the National Department of Education and the D.G. Murray Trust, a foundation in Cape Town. Funds pay teaching costs as well as the expenses involved in translating the materials into four of South Africa's 11 official languages: Afrikaans, Sotho, Tswana and Xhosa. Hunter said she hopes to expand the program so education majors at +Edinboro+ University can participate in training South Africans. ¶ Edinboro, located in Erie County, is one of the 14 universities that are part of Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education. Training teachers has always been an important component of the schools' missions. They all began as teachers colleges and have since expanded to offer a broader range of degree programs. Hunter's program is based on a teaching plan developed at the University of California at Berkeley called Family Math and Family Science. The United States' portion of the funding comes from a program started during the Clinton administration that encourages economic and educational development in Africa. The Education for Development and Democracy Initiative, which grew out of President Clinton's 1998 trip to Africa, has so far spent $30 million on programs between American and African organizations. It has funded projects in Botswana, Ghana, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. Hunter said she had the idea of developing a program in South Africa after working on similar programs in the United States. She has given similar workshops throughout Pennsylvania and in cities such as Los Angeles. On Net: Edinboro University of Pennsylvania: http://www.edinboro.edu; Education for Development and Democracy Initiative: http://www.eddionline.org Claude R. Marx covers Pennsylvania issues in Washington for The Associated Press. |