As the quality of education takes front seat in the international debate about development, and with teacher qualification ranking high in the list of priorities, the Gordon V. and Helen C. Smith Foundation points to the importance of studying success stories that could help create a list of best practices in the field. UNESCO’s 2014 EFA Global Monitoring Report emphasizes teacher training as one major area for improvement, stating that “education quality improves when teachers are supported.”?
The Smith Foundation, the philanthropic vehicle of Gordon and Helen Smith and their extended family supports The School of St Jude (www.schoolofstjude.org) in Tanzania. Over the past 12 years, this nonprofit school has created a working model to support its teachers, who don’t have access to adequate teachers colleges in their country. St Jude’s has put together a team of eight highly-experienced volunteer teacher mentors to work alongside the local teachers, and bring them some of the best ideas for teaching and learning from around the world.
The mentors sort through the books and resources donated to the school, classify everything into school grades and subjects, and show teachers how to effectively use them in the classroom. An early childhood specialist helps teachers integrate the curriculum across different subject areas. A former principal from New Zealand works directly with the local headmasters to get them up to speed with modern school leadership principles. A library educator creates programs to help teachers and library staff to enhance their research skills and look deeper for different sources of information throughout the school’s well-stacked libraries.
The results are promising. In Tanzania’s 2013 mandatory nationwide exams, St Jude’s ranked fourth out of all 355 schools in the country’s Northwest, including private institutions. “By employing local teachers and international volunteer mentors, St Jude’s has creatively overcome the dearth of appropriate teacher training resources in East Africa," says Cindy Skarbek, the Smith Foundation Project Manager who is directly involved with the school.
The Smith family’s involvement with The School of St Jude’s grew out of a 2004 trip to Tanzania by several generations of family members. The safari company they traveled with introduced them not just to Tanzania’s natural environment but also to local people and local institutions, with visits to a fish farm, a Maasai village, and a government school.
The school visit was eye-opening, demonstrating great need. It also became clear that housing for teachers was a key problem. The Smith family’s business is homebuilding, so helping meet this need was a natural fit. Through the safari company, they were able to donate $5,000 to help build teachers’ housing for the government school they had visited.
But the family wanted a longer-term, more strategic involvement, so Skarbek and her brother Bruce Smith made another trip to Tanzania, visiting both government and private schools. What they were looking for was an institution with some measure of success, but also with needs such that the support the family could provide would have a big impact. “Our family has strong connections in Washington DC, where there is also great need to improve education, but we felt we could make more of a difference in Tanzania,” Skarbek said.
The Gordon V. and Helen C. Smith Foundation strongly supports the evolution of the school’s approach to using international educational expertise as a resource to help local teachers. In looking at the experience, Skarbek said “If we were starting again, we might put more time into planning and strategy with the school, but we’re happy with where we’ve ended up and where the school is going. St Jude’s approach of teaching the teachers’ is right in line with what international research is saying about the importance of local educational capacity. And it’s paying off in results for the kids.”
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