A week into the project

It's been a whirlwind of activity since arriving in South Africa a little over a week ago.  The international team of fourteen people on the Corporate Services Corp is terrific.  We have split into 4 teams and have been working with our clients over the last week to fully understand their needs and agree on what we will be delivering to them by early October.

My team of three is working with the Limpopo Department of Education in one of their five districts, Sekhukhune (Sek-ku-ku-ne).  In 2010 Sekhukhune had ~219K Primary school students, and ~114K secondary students.

The district is dominated by rural schools and many do not have running water.  The lucky schools have electricity and access to computers.  The district was declared a focus district by the Provincial Government as their academic results for school education were not at the standard that was needed.


We are helping the District develop a framework for teacher Professional Development for the Foundation Phase students (Kindergarten to Year 3).  We are also developing a monitoring tool for the IBM KidSmart Program pilot in 25 schools before it is rolled out to 200 schools in the District.  KidSmart is a colourful, fully contained computer for 5-6 year old students with interactive games to support children's development and learning.

Kindergarten teachers at Kidsmart training

 There have been so many highlights and observations that I cannot do all of them justice, so will briefly touch on a few: 

• The people are friendly and very passionate about their wonderful country.  They remember the struggles of the past and at the same time have their eyes on the future that a united South Africa can achieve.
• The full team of 14 were hosted to a Gala Dinner on the first evening in Limpopo where the officials from the Department of Education welcomed us with open arms. 
• We visited small rural schools where the smiling faces of the children beamed at our cameras
• We participated in a training program for the teachers at the 25 schools who will be receiving KidSmart computers.  This was the first experience of computers for all of them and it was tremendous to see their enthusiasm to learn.... and, of course,
• South Africa won two games in the world cup - a constant source of discussion here at the moment with everyone wearing Springbok jerseys to support their team (and lots of animated discussions when it's discovered that one of my team member, Daniel, is from  Brazil)
• I have been impressed by the good road infrastructure in and between the cities.  Things change quickly once you get off the main roads in the rural areas. 
• I feel very much at home with the red dirt, bottle brush, gum trees, bouganvillia and jacarandas everywhere.... it's clear that our continents had a common beginning geologically.  

Hill behind Tiitsana Primary School with the toilet block in the foreground

Tiitsana Primary School building

My greatest challenge at present is to become better at understanding and remembering all the wonderful names of the South Africans we meet.