Kiwi teaching methods make world of difference

Sally Angelson with children in Mumbwa, Zambia, where the first ATLAS pilot was conducted. Photo / Supplied

Meet the woman who's bringing Kiwi education to the Third World.

ChildFund NZ is taking Kiwi teaching methods to underprivileged schools in Sri Lanka.

The programme creator, Sally Angelson, said ATLAS (Active Teaching and Learning Approaches in Schools) is already being rolled out and will be implemented across Sri Lankan primary schools nationwide.

This is after the programme had a successful few years in Zambia, where more than 23 schools benefited from a 60 per cent pass rate increase.

Ms Angelson - who helped oversee the programme in Zambia where she witnessed more than 100 pupils to a class - said ATLAS-trained teachers to have a more hands-on approach to learning.

"It's giving the teachers resources to teach interactively and giving students the opportunity to learn together, rather than just sit in rows and listen to the teacher."

The programme will at first focus on the war-torn and tsunami-battered area of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. In this region Ms Angelson said 90 per cent of children failed core papers at school.

"We saw some of the same challenges in the schools to what we saw in Zambia. Large class sizes, low resources, pretty old-fashioned styles of teaching."

The programme had no government funding and totally relied on donations from the New Zealand public, she said.

Ms Angelson comes from a teaching background and is now the programme manager at ChildFund NZ. She is heading to Sri Lanka in September to help oversee the scheme.

NZH jc