Inside the world’s classrooms

Widespread stigma means many parents in Machakos, Kenya, keep their children with disabilities hidden away at home, rather than sending them to school. 

VSO youth volunteers on the International Citizen Service programme have been working with people who live in the vicinity of a special education unit to try and change that. 

Head teacher Margaret Mbithi says, “Attitudes are changing since the volunteers started coming here to work with these children. 

“Children in the mainstream school used to be scared of our pupils here. They used to run away from them. But after seeing the volunteers, they now sometimes come across to our unit and assist with the children here. Even the other teachers see them differently now. They realise that they are children too, and that with support they can do marvellously.”

Since 25 August 2017, targeted violence against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar, has forced over 671,000 people, mostly women and children, to flee their homes.  

Many are living in makeshift camps in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. For the youngest children, this disruption poses a real risk to their development and education.  

VSO volunteers have trained Rohingya mothers to educate groups of younger children at home through play-based learning. We’ve also created child-friendly spaces where older children can learn in safety.

Schools in Katsina state in northern Nigeria are generally poor and remote. Many schools lack even the most basic science teaching aids. 

To change that, VSO has piloted a ‘lab in a van’ concept. This is a mobile science lab with a set of teaching resources and a qualified teacher trainer. It rotates science education between 15 schools, reaching around 7,500 students and 60 teachers.  

It’s delivered by young Nigerian graduates who have spent a year volunteering in schools, as part of the National Graduate Volunteering programme. Their VSO training equips them to teach English, maths and science in rural schools.

During the Ebola crisis, schools in Sierra Leone were closed to prevent the spread of the disease. An unexpected rise in teenage pregnancies followed.  

Whilst pregnant, young girls are not allowed to continue schooling in Sierra Leone. The interruption to their education, in addition to their parenting duties, means they may never return to the classroom.  

In Binkolo, VSO’s support has led to the formation of a ‘teenage mothers’ school’. Set up by retired teachers and local community volunteers, the afternoon school uses local classrooms to teach young mothers the basic curriculum.  

Students can bring their babies into the classroom so that they can nurse them whilst learning. Many have been able to return to mainstream school having kept up with their education.

With an average class size of 70 children, teachers in Malawi struggle to provide feedback and support to each student.  

Through the Unlocking Talent project, VSO is making personalised support to each student possible again. Using solar-powered tablets loaded up with literacy and numeracy apps, the programme provides instant feedback and allows children to work through topics at their own pace.

Developed with our partner, onebillion, the programme has been so successful at bettering learning outcomes that it is now being implemented in schools in the UK as well. 

Volunteers like Chris Goma are inspiring teachers to find new applications for the technology. Recently, they’ve seen success using the software to re-engage children who have dropped out or fallen behind in their learning, ultimately resulting in children re-enrolling in education. 

For many children in India, being able to speak and write in English is a pathway to jobs and better opportunities. But teaching quality remains low, with many children struggling to pronounce letters and words, and lacking in self-confidence.  

To challenge this, VSO partnered with Vodafone’s World of Difference programme to set up a project to improve literacy by introducing a phonics approach to teaching. Bitesize lessons were delivered to resource-poor teachers via SMS messages to their mobile phones. Volunteers drawn from Vodafone’s workforce, as well as local communities, oversaw the project’s roll-out. 

The impact has been remarkable. The project evaluation suggests that before the project, 51% of children in 120 schools weren’t able to read a single English word. After the intervention that number dropped dramatically, to just 5%.

Shee Jewan Jyoti Madhyamik Bidhyalaya school has a total of 1014 students – with a gender split of almost 50:50, girls to boys. It’s a huge achievement, as in Nepal there are many barriers that can lead girls to drop out of school early.

Tirtha Prasad Poudel is head teacher, after going to school here himself as a boy and then working first as a teacher for 30 years. He’d seen a lot of changes over the years, and especially in the years since the school joined VSO’s Sisters for Sisters Education programme. 

Women from the local community, or “big sisters”, mentor ‘little sisters’ – schoolgirls who have been identified by teachers as vulnerable and at risk of dropping out. VSO’s programme also provides school materials to encourage young girls to stay in school, learn English and digital technologies.  

Tirtha says, “I feel proud to be part of this school. Especially, when I see students from this school represented in senior positions in the government. There are doctors, police officers, and senior government officers in the country who were students of this school – my students. They make us feel proud and many come back to the school and to help us – they are our strength.”