Barnet school goes global

8:40am Sunday 20th July 2008

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Education and books go hand in hand, so when a Barnet school discovered its partner in South Africa had an empty library, it decided to do something about it.

Pupils at Christ’s College School, in East End Road, Finchley, have spent the past two months collecting thousands of books from publishers, charities, friends and family to send to Inkwenkwezi School, in a small township called Du Noon, just outside Cape Town.

The school now has 11,500 books to add to its library, along with a video camera and computer facilities. With only 25 teachers to look after 1,000 students, Inkwenkwezi headteacher Phinda Siyo said the donation would be “very beneficial” to the school.

He added: “Our schooling system is in a process of change and therefore sharing this with developed and well resourced countries can only take us to another level in both in our professional development and learners education.”

Christ’s College deputy head, Ben Taubman, said the book donation was just one of a number of initiatives carried out in recent months to help build cultural links between the schools.

“This was not about donating, but about developing curriculum projects with them,” he said. “It is about building connections between our schools.”

Funded by the British Council, Christ’s College and Inkwenkwezi have run a number of teacher exchange programs and joint education projects over the past few months. In February, a group of Christ’s College teachers visited Inkwenkwezi, and last week two teachers from the South African school came to Finchley.

Pupils recently began a joint newspaper, which they will email to each other, and there are plans to start a communal history project about the “end of empire”, in which students will make documentary films to show one another.

“This sort of education is absolutely crucial, because it shows the students that there is a wider world in which they can mix and talk with children in other countries, and help understand their lives,” said Mr Taubman.

“The children in Cape Town can talk about their fear of fires in their shacks, about AIDs and teenaged pregnancy. Our children can talk about crime and fear on the streets. Talking in this way helps children in both countries develop their understanding of one another.”

Mr Siyo was equally enthusiastic about the partnership. He said: “This opens doors for learners and educators to the world. The fact that South Africa has just come out of an oppressive system of apartheid means that there is a lot that people can learn and even share with the broad international community in education and other spheres of life.

“The partnership therefore exposes our learners into both worlds of life, South African and British.”

Year 12 Christ’s College student Roy Appiah, 17, played an active part in the book donation project, putting up posters, contacting schools and companies, and packaging the books into containers. He said he had learnt a great deal from the joint projects between the schools.

“I think it’s a really important thing. We in London think that we live in a bubble, and it shows us that the world is not such a rosy place. We learn from them and they learn from us,” he said.

“For example, I didn’t know anything about Apartheid and how deep the emotional scars still run in South Africa. And they came over and saw how culturally diverse we are. South Africa is very segregated still, and they could see that people can work together and use it as a model for what they want to achieve.”