Teaching Assistants/Teacher Trainers: Primary, Nursery & Secondary Schools

  Malawi

Durations of Program: 5-8 weeks, 9-12 weeks, 3-6 months and 7-12 months
Typical Duration of Program: 9-12 weeks
Dates: All year round

Description: Primary School: Mwaya Primary School has about 800-850 pupils from the local community. While there should be one teacher for each Standard (1-8), there is currently a shortage in Malawi and there are only six fully trained Government paid teachers at the school. In addition, RIPPLE Africa is paying eight Malawian trainee teachers to assist them. Class sizes can be as large as 70-100 although official enrolment can be as high as 150 per class. Teachers, especially in the higher levels, are under enormous pressure to cover a wide-ranging curriculum with very limited resources and time. Despite this, pupils are generally motivated and enthusiastic.

This volunteer opportunity is a cooperative initiative that involves evaluating the needs of the school with the current volunteers, our Education Coordinator, the headmaster, classroom teachers, and trainee teachers in tailoring your responsibilities to best meet these, taking into account your special skills and interests. This might mean helping the class teacher with marking the pupils' work, which may not sound very inspiring but will give you a good insight into the children's abilities (or lack of them) and will help the teacher tremendously as marking upwards of 50 pupils' work each day takes a lot of their time. You might also help with teaching English and science to Standards 5, 6, and 7, or maths, English and geography to Standards 7 and 8 each day. The school is a ten-minute walk from Mwaya Beach. Working hours and days off are arranged with the Education Coordinator and the headmaster.

During the holidays and in the afternoons in term time, it is possible to organise special tutorials or holiday classes at the primary school. These can follow the main curriculum or be as diverse and varied as your own imagination. As the school operates on an absolute bare-bones budget, however, volunteers should plan to provide any materials or equipment required for these courses or extra-curricular activities.

Nursery Schools: We want to recruit overseas volunteers who would be interested in helping at one or more of the nursery schools and/or who would be able to give the teachers some additional training in teaching young children of nursery school age. RIPPLE Africa supports five nursery schools in the area and, until recently, the teachers were unpaid and untrained volunteers from the community. Thanks to the generosity of one of our donors, we are now able to pay the teachers a salary. Also, we are able to fund teacher training courses for them all at least once a year. The nursery schools play a very important role in giving children aged two to five or six years old a sound grounding in the basics (i.e. numbers, the alphabet, English, etc.) before they start their primary education.

Secondary School: Now that construction of the new secondary school at Kapanda (about 30-40 minutes walk from Mwaya Beach) has begun, there will also be an opportunity for our volunteers to assist with teaching there. The school opened for Form 1 early in 2008, and the second double classroom block, a second teachers house, and a building comprising teachers' offices and a secure storeroom will be ready for use by the beginning of the new academic year in January 2009.

A couple of years ago, two of our former volunteers, who were post-doctoral graduates in maths and biochemistry, respectively, taught at Mwaya Primary School and also at one of the local secondary schools. In addition, they organised a two-week course in maths, biology, physics and chemistry for secondary school teachers, which they ran with another volunteer. Their efforts were so well received that we are keen for more postdoctoral graduates to volunteer for us and to continue with the work they started.

It is possible to organise special tutorials or holiday classes for secondary school students during the holidays and in the afternoons in term time. These can follow the main curriculum or be as diverse and varied as your own imagination.

Placement Length: We would prefer our volunteers to make a commitment of a minimum of three months to coincide with the school term times, although shorter stays can be arranged. It is important to recognise that, although the volunteers will benefit enormously from their experience at Mwaya, our main responsibility is to provide consistent and effective assistance to the community.

Qualifications: Qualified volunteer teachers or volunteer trainee teachers of any subject at any level, although we will also consider applicants who have been educated to degree level. However, we do recommend that those volunteers who are not qualified teachers or trainee teachers study for a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) or TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) qualification if at all possible. It is important to have a genuine interest in making a worthwhile contribution and the ability to live in a rural environment while establishing a solid relationship with the local community. Enthusiasm for working with young people is also essential.

Minimum Education: Bachelors

Cost in US$: 300 non-refundable deposit plus an amount dependent on the length of stay

Experience Required: no

Typical Volunteer: RIPPLE Africa volunteers are typically enthusiastic, hard-working, self-motivated and proactive people who are able to work under their own initiative. They do not replace or take jobs away from local Malawians they assist them with the various projects running in the area around Mwaya. RIPPLE Africa volunteers are also realists - they know they won't change Africa, but they hope they will make a difference to the lives of a few of the local people.

Age Range: 21 upwards (average age is 23-28 years old)

This Program is open to American, Australian, Canadian, European, Kiwi, South African and Worldwide Participants. This Program is also open to Couples and Individuals

Participants Travel to Malawi Independently

Typically Participants Work Independently or in Groups of up to 10

Application Process Involves:

• Written Application

RIPPLE Africa's Mission Statement: Our mission is to improve the standard of education and health care, to preserve and sustainable develop the environment, and to create opportunities for the local community around Mwaya on the northern lake shore of Lake Malawi. Our aim is to give a hand up - not a hand out.

Year Founded: 2003