Socio-economic challenges in rural areas continue to play a huge part in the poor levels of education that have been made available to learners in these regions. Rural communities are already faced with a lack of basic infrastructure for sanitation, water, roads and other transport, electricity and information and communication technologies - all of these factors put learners and their teachers at a disadvantage before they even get into the classroom.
Very often rural schools find it difficult to attract suitable teachers, because there are less financial resources available. Offering support to teachers who have been inadequately prepared for teaching in rural locations is a vital solution in improving overall standards of education.
In order to address these difficulties the I Can Help Africa Foundation (ICHAF) has embarked on a practical solution that will offer a solid support system to both students and teachers who are under immense pressure as they deal with the reality of overcrowded classrooms and a lack of resources. ICHAF is an Indian owned training and development college that focuses their efforts on corporate training and scholar programmes through the charity sector of the organisation.
A major issue of rural education is that many teachers are faced with 'multi-grade' teaching where they are tasked with learners of different ages in one class - all without any previous training to handle this rural anomaly - which then leads to many students not receiving the level of attention they require.
"More and more students are struggling to cope with basic literacy and foundational mathematics and there simply aren't enough teachers to counteract this imbalance. This results in low learner morale, frustrated teachers and a bleak academic future for the struggling learner," says ICHAF founder, Devan Moonsamy.
To answer this call, ICHAF has implemented a tutoring and teacher programme that is designed to assist struggling learners and offer support to rural teachers. Student teachers, paid by this corporate training company, are dispatched to qualifying schools to aid teachers with the workload. Some schools, like the Harry Bodasing Rural School in Kawdukuza in KwaZulu-Natal, have a permanent teacher posted by ICHAF.
"These programmes have been working well," says Moonsamy. "Learners and teachers enjoy the benefit of having an additional member of staff to support the learners who need dire assistance. The synergy between corporate training and the scholar tutoring programme has worked well. Corporates embrace the concept because now they have an opportunity to up-skill their people while giving back to the community at the same time."
