THE KWENA BASIN SCHOOLS PROJECT, 2011 – 10 YEARS ON

 

Background

 

The Kwena Basin Schools Project, now in its 10th year, developed through a partnership between the Kwena Basin Conservancy, a group of like-minded landowners, and the Wits University faculty of Education who wanted to support education in the local community.

 

The community

 

The community served by the Kwena Basin Schools is tightly knit, proudly traditional and consists mainly of farm worker families of long standing, many being three- generation households. For their children, a solid primary and high school education is a passport to the world.

 

The Schools

 

There are three schools benefiting from the project:

 

Klipspruit Combined School, a historical farm school in the northern end of the valley on the road to Lydenburg, now has 14 teachers serving 400 learners from grade R to grade twelve.

 

Umthombopholile (meaning “fountain of healing or knowledge”) primary school on the farm Wilgekraal in the south of the valley, has six teachers and 148 learners up to grade 7.

 

Phakama (derived from “waking up”, or “picking up”) primary school on the Verlorenkloof Estate, has four teachers and 135 learners up to grade 7.

 

The project up to now

 

Twice annually since 2002, teaching students from the Wits School of Education have been spending their prescribed three-week school experience sessions in the Kwena Basin Schools under the leadership of lecturers Jean Place and Grant Coltman.

 

For many of the students this would be a first extended time away from home and from Johannesburg. Feeding and caring for themselves, navigating gravel roads, language barriers, standing before a class of expectant faces for the first time but being consoled by the beauty of the valley and the mountains every day – this “Kwena experience” would become a revered rite of passage at the Wits School of Education.

 

The relationship and interaction between the children, the students, their lecturers, the teachers at the schools and the supporting community have had enormous benefits to all concerned:-

 

The lecturers’ and students’ passion and dedication are an inspiration to the local teachers, who in their turn impart their hard earned practical experience.

The students, some from privileged backgrounds, return to Johannesburg with a full appreciation of the challenges of teaching without some basic facilities and so learn to innovate, to persist and to prevail, and to love teaching.

For the learners, the student teachers are initially a curiosity, but grow into inspiring role models by the end of the three weeks, resulting in often tearful partings.

 

Dr Place did her doctoral thesis on the education in the Kwena Basin Schools and has been successful in obtaining and instituting a world acclaimed reading programme called THRASS at the schools, resulting in vastly improved literacy skills.

 

From a three-week school experience stint to teaching full time

 

It should have been no surprise that the Kwena experience moved three students to apply at Kwena Basin schools for their first teaching posts. From 2008 to 2011, three newly graduated teachers, Thembeni Phoseka, Margaret Macgillivray and Iona McNaughton cut their teeth in teaching at the schools, funded by generous full salary grants from ABSA.

 

They each became loved and respected educators in their respective schools and left strong imprints. They have helped to build a national reputation for the schools and the project, over and above influencing large numbers of young lives in ways that will only become apparent when personal success stories are told many years from now.

 

A sustainable arrangement – the Kwena Basin Education Trust

 

 Sadly, ABSA had to withdraw at the end of 2011, and when two of the top students from the Wits class of 2011, Taryn Coop and Mel Gough insisted that they wished to teach in the Kwena Basin schools, a long term plan was required that could sustain this.

 

 The Kwena Basin Education Trust, a public benefit organisation (PBO), is in the process of being formed, with the following initial objectives:-

• To fund the placement of two graduate teachers in Kwena Basin schools,
• To host and fund the Wits student teaching-practical project,
• To improve facilities at Kwena schools, and to provide resources,
• To build the capacity and ensure sustainability of the initiative.

 

Actions imminent

 

The two teachers will start teaching at Klipspruit Combined School on 18 January 2012, Taryn in mathematics at secondary level and Mel in English second language at foundation phase level.

 

Their salaries will be funded for the first two months from a grant that the to-be-formed Trust has obtained from the Kwena Basin Conservancy.

 

The fundraising will be launched at a function at the Wits School of Education on 9 February 2012.

 

SHOULD YOU WISH TO MAKE AN EARLY (OR CHRISTMAS) CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROJECT, herewith the banking details for the Kwena Basin Conservancy – this bank account will be used as the operating bank account until the Kwena Basin Education Trust is registered.

 

Bank: ABSA Lydenburg  

Branch code: 334 351

Account Name:  Kwena Basin Conservancy

Account Number:  907 134 4276.

NB.  Kindly insert your name in the deposit reference.

 

LEARN MORE:

 

Google: “THRASS” and “Kwena Basin Schools”

Trustees:

Dr Jean Place can be contacted on e-mail: Jean.Place@wits.ac.za

Heidi Johnson on heidi@verlorenkloof.co.za

Patti Legg at p.legg@mweb.co.za