Recent News
Steve Toben addresses the National Center
on Family Philanthropy. Steve’s talk considers ways to engage all members of a multi-generational family in philanthropy.
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(1 hr 30 min)
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Recent News
Flora Family Foundation Supports Teacher Training in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Flora Family Foundation has approved grants totaling $879,500 to thirteen organizations working to improve teacher training in South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. In announcing the grants, foundation president Steve Toben said, “The Millenium Development Goals call for ensuring that by 2015 all children have access to a complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality. Some African countries have enacted laws providing free universal access to primary schools. This has dramatically increased enrollment, but the recruitment and training of teachers has not always kept pace with demand. These grantees are among the top organizations working to improve quality of teaching for African children.”
Most of the grantees are committed to reforming pedagogy from a rote learning model in which the teacher primarily lectures, to a student-centered model that incorporates question and answer, group discussion, role play, brainstorming, excursions and exhibitions, all of which foster creative, analytic and problem-solving skills.
By necessity, teacher training programs often address non-academic issues, such as appropriate support for teachers and children dealing with AIDS. This is especially true in South Africa, which has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world.
Several of the projects focus particular attention on the role of the Headteacher. These individuals bear responsibility for the effective operation of their schools, and research shows that students suffer in poorly managed schools. Thus, some of the grantees offer specific coursework on skills-building for administrators.
All of the proposed projects include an evaluation component to measure improvements in academic achievement following the training of teachers and administrators. While these evaluations do not compare results to control groups, they can offer evidence correlating training interventions to gains in student achievement.
To read the roster of grantees, click here.
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