Having been involved in a partnership between the college in London at which I work and a high school in Kabale, Uganda, for nearly three years now, I am beginning to think about whether there is such a thing as a ‘right kind of aid’. Our partnership, created in many respects by the now-trustees of Solomon’s Children, a UK-based and registered charity, focussed originally on the diversification of teaching and learning techniques in the Ugandan high school. It would see the teachers from our college teaching in the Ugandan classrooms to showcase different lesson types that avoided the hitherto ubiquitous ‘chalk and talk’ lessons – lessons where the teacher stands at the blackboard and the students write it all down which isn’t great for the quieter students. In the UK, all teachers are entitled to over thirty hours of CPD, or continuing professional development, on an annual basis, paid for by the college or school. Our Ugandan counterparts, I discovered, did not have this privilege.
windows on the world, travel diaries and an attempt to make a little bit of sense of everything I find