South African Teaching Partnership

Since 2004 School of Education graduates from the University of Nottingham have been travelling to Mamelodi, South Africa to participate in school development projects. Their experiences have been moving and enriching.

Mamelodi is a densely populated township with large areas of informal settlements and the schools suffer from:

• having run-down, and sometimes unsafe buildings large and overcrowded classes;
• few books or teaching aids and virtually no equipment for maths, science and technology;
• having to care for children infected by HIV/Aids;
• receiving only limited local funding;
• a low level of financial support from parents since over 90% are unemployed.

During 2010, the Academy Unit at the university organised for a teacher from Mamelodi to visit the UK to work with our year 6 transition pupils. This year the unit has facilitated a teacher exchange programme with Ms Makola from Sikhanyisele Primary School and Ms Zinde from Meetse A Bophelo Primary School coming to the UK during June to participate in our Y6 transition activities (click here to return to NUSA's Transition Programme page).

At the end of July 2011 two local teachers - Ms Lord from Brocklewood Primary School and Ms Wilkie from NUSA - will be joining the university group, supported by the Mamelodi Trust, to work over fourteen days in Sikhanyisele Primary School, Meetse A Bophelo Primary School, Stanza Bopape Secondary School and Ribane Laka Secondary School, schools all located in the township called Mamelodi.

Photographs by Alison Ingram