What could this pupil be writing up on the board?

How similar is this classroom activity to that which occurs

on a daily basis in UK schools?

Alison Leonard, doctoral student:Development Education Research Centre,

Institute of Education,University of London

School linking: young people’s perspectives from the Global South DfID claims “Over

3,900 partnerships have been established (November 2011)” since its Global Schools Partnerships (DGSP) linking programme started in 2003

DGSP is being replaced with a new programme

The location of Southern schools in DfID’s new “Connecting Classrooms” linking programme is focused on African and South Asian locations

Young people and School linksMy key questions today: My data today:

1. How does the S/NELP affect young people in the global South?

2. How do young people learn about ESDGC and Development Education?

3. What advice do young people offer to those contemplating new links?

• From focus groups with students in Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania

• In Ghana: girls at a rural secondary school

• In Uganda: students in a primary school and a secondary school

• In Tanzania: students in a Zanzibar secondary school

• + occasionally comments from their teachers

1. How the South/North Educational Linking Process (S/NELP) affects young people

FriendshipsAspirationsEducational

attainmentResourcing of

education

1. How the S/NELP affects young people in the global South

Friendships: SJCCE There is cooperation between the children

in Uganda and the children in UK, development . (SJCC PFG 13-14)

E If there is cooperation I mean there is friendship, cooperative- we cooperate to each other. (SJCC PFG 15-16)

1. How the S/NELP affects young people in the global South

Aspirations “I think this partnership is

also helping to get more girls or more of us interested in schooling…”

“I think the partnership is also helping, because, um, when the students from Weald come to Ghana, and the pupils there in our school sees them, we admire them because.. We wouldn’t... I’m not too sure that any of the students from Krobo Girls would want to end up in the streets or selling something, when we see the Weald students come: the way they talk, the, the way they present themselves generally, the way they are able to express themselves the student there are in my school are also motivated to do the same things. So they wouldn’t really want to drop out of school.” (P, PFG)

“But with these girl child education advocates all over the place and with this ...project most students, most girls, or most parents now understand the relevance of education and its helping to promote … gender equality and empowering women”.

1. How the S/NELP affects young people in the global South

Educational attainment Our teachers have benefited

from various teachers, including there is a lot of teachers who have visits to there. Europe, I mean London, so they are among the people who are going to visit London, are our teachers. So, that is very important for our teachers, because when they go there they study something about it and when they came here they maybe they modify. How, how this is, maybe? This is very important, this is [hard] for me maybe, this teaching is very important. So, they know what I am going to teach and what I am not. (S, PFG, 161-168)

Teachers from Aston school and Makunduchi school, they are creating a relationship, because in our school there are few teachers of science. And, from this situation, it helped us to get, to get another teacher of science, because in this school teachers of science is: few. And in this situation it helped us to improve the knowledge, especially science, because it is very important knowledge. (M, PFG, 188-193)

1. How the S/NELP affects young people in the global South

Resourcing of education

1. How the S/NELP affects young people in the global South

2. How young people learn about ESDGCEducation for Sustainable Development (ESD)

Critical Global Citizenship (GC)

Collaborative learningProject workScience investigations

2. How do young people learn about ESDGC and Development Education?

2. How young people learn about ESDGCProject work Science investigation

With this link, with the group from Weald of Kent have encouraged us to recycle our rubbish, because really the rubbish are posing a great challenge and problem in Ghana. Therefore with their encouragement we’ve been able to use this rubbish to make a carpet and floormats, which was presented to the Weald of Kent school.

2. How do young people learn about ESDGC and Development Education?

2. How young people learn about Development Education Development education: Contact through visitsPromotes and supports

education for world citizenship

Encourages people to consider the world through the eyes and ears of others

Promotes the voices and viewpoints of those who are excluded from an equal share in the benefits of human development internationally

Experiences and actions within development education

...a set of experiencesthat create interest and engagement...

Irish Aid (2006)

2. How young people learn about Development Education Development Education

From a male Ugandan primary school pupil Social injustice: Since some

of the children who are unable to pay their school fees through their parents, they are given care and school fees from the links from Europe. They are given money to avoid illiteracy, in the school in Uganda and all over parts of the nation.

It is good through the links because many of the schools have been improved, have been modernised and illiteracy has been prevented and avoided.

2. How do young people learn about ESDGC and Development Education?

The world through the eyes and ears of others Stereotypes Reality: critical GCE

S Since Stephen Jota is supporting orphans in Uganda, so those children in UK help in supporting some children in Uganda, like orphans and other disabled people (SJCC PFG 21-22)

So, they teach us maybe theory, but we need practical. I mean maybe when you finds maybe practical… Sodium reacts with, maybe magnesium; sodium reacts with water, so that: what happened? So, that fact you are supposed to have seen, by face. So, you see, to a lot of schools, within Africa, including Makunduchi, there is less laboratory apparatus. So, this is a very, very difficult problem for our schools. (S, PFG, 219-224)

2. How do young people learn about ESDGC and Development Education?

2. How do young people learn about ESDGC and Development Education?

Contributions to the UN’s final MDG, a Partnership for Global Development

Through partnerships many of these things have been developed; some of our countries… Some of our countries who hadn’t had markets, they have improved markets through those regional bodies. That will help the development in the global partnership, of their country. They will create markets, free market movement of goods, there will be employed; many will get chances of movement- many will get chances of taking their goods abroad- and bringing say? There will be a spreading of possibility of importing and exporting; there will be free movement of goods. They will reduce taxes; highly paid taxes will be reduced. That is what I have.2. How do young people learn about ESDGC and Development Education?

3. Young people’s advice to those contemplating new links Advice to new linkers: From secondary students

We learnt um that they used, that they tend to use phones a lot with their host families. So when we are coming we were told that we should be very, very careful as to how we make certain demands. Because the host families might not tell us in the face that, that this is not right, but they might give complaints and then maybe later on then this, due to the complaints, the partnership and the link and everything might end. Because we wouldn’t get people who would want to host us anymore. So we are very, very careful.

3. Young people’s advice about new links

3. Young people and new linksPrimary to secondary: Primary school advice

S To me, I would advise that the schools, if they have a link they should be with a goal, that they are aiming to, and they should avoid corruption in what they are doing and they should be satisfied with what they are given and in order to achieve what they are getting at. (S, PFG,157-160)

3. Young people’s advice about new links

2012 and beyond…Funding School links

Avoiding ‘development pornography’:

Funding for Development, Development Education and charitable giving is likely to face renewed pressure in 2012

“We can maybe take the beads there, exhibit it and then sell. To maybe, maybe we have a programme down, projects down here and maybe we are building a school, a library or something, which will facilitate learning or enhance it. Then when we would bring the money down we would use to maybe finish up where we are starting, which would help the students in a very long way” (P, PFG)

The implications are clear: ‘Each image depicting poverty and disease needsto be more graphic than the next to elicit more response’ (Sankore, 2006, p36). Localcommunities in Canada and the United States respond to these campaigns bycreating even more agencies to address humanitarian needs in Africa. Thecreation of more aid and development agencies leads to frenzied activityamong NGOs, who vie to be the best in penetrating the hearts of potentialgivers. Such competition engenders the production of even more powerful‘development pornography’ (Ibid p37).(Quist-Adade and Van Wyk, 2007, p78)

3. Young people’s advice about new links

Negative or complicated,

complex effects?

Who takes part in Visits?

Cost effectiveness of projects

Is new expertise increasing local inequalities?

Cultural clashes – whose values?

Misunderstanding, breakdown in communication

Outdated or outmoded technology transfers?

Maintenance, repair, to support use of equipment.Electricity outages

Dependency

References Ash, C and Severs, P. (2004), “Do you ask a hungry man if he wants food?”, School Science Review, 86, pp43-47

Bourn, D. and Bain, M. (2011) Impact of School Linking on the Global South- Case Study of Uganda, London, Link Community Development/Institute of Education

Burr, M. (2007) Thinking about Linking. DEA thinkpiece. www.dea.org.uk/thinkpieces

Burr, M, Andreotti, V and de Souza, L. M. (January 2007): Humanities Education Centre (London): Southern Voices in linking: barriers to engagement

Edge, K., Frayman, K., and Lawrie, J. (2009) ‘The Influence of North-South School Partnerships: Examining the evidence from schools in the UK, Africa and Asia’. London: Institute of Education

Irish Aid (2006) Irish aid and development education, describing… understanding… challenging, Dublin: Department of Foreign Affairs.

Leonard, A. (2012) A Southern Perspective on The South/North Educational Linking process (S/NELP). Early stage analysis from Zanzibar. Copies available upon request from the author. Downloadable pdf from www.leonard-morrison.org/Alison_Leonard

McNicholl, K. (2012) Do students benefit from North South School Partnerships?, unpublished MA dissertation, Master of Arts Degree in Development and Emergency Practice, Oxford Brookes University, Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) School of Built Environment

Martin, F (2007) ‘School Linking as a Controversial Issue’ in Claire & Holden (eds) The challenge of teaching controversial issues Trentham Books

Martin, F. (2009) Children's Voices and Global School Partnerships, GTE presentation, http://www.geography.org.uk/gtip/gteconferences/gteconference09

Pickering. S (2008):“What do children really learn? A discussion to investigate the effect that School partnerships have on children’s understanding, sense of values and perceptions of a distant place”, GeogEd Volume 2, Issue 1 Article 3 www.geography.org.uk/geoged

Quist-Adade, C. and Van Wyk, A. (2007) The Role of NGOs in Canada and the USA in the Transformation of the Socio-Cultural Structures in Africa, Africa Development, Vol. XXXII, No. 2, 2007, pp. 66–96, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa

Scoffham S (2007) Please Miss, Why are they so Poor? Primary Geographer Spring 2007

Thanks to those at:Kisiki College, Namatumba, UgandaKrobo Girls Senior Secondary School,

Odumase-Krobo, GhanaMakunduchi Secondary School, Makunduchi,

Zanzibar, TanzaniaNakigo Senior Secondary School, Iganga,

UgandaStephen Jota Children’s Centre, Kampala,

Uganda