Everyone that knows me knows that I’m a little *A LOT* Type A and that I’m accustomed to using most of my “free time” for work (unhealthy, I know!). However, coming to Jo’burg, I knew I needed to be intentional about creating a healthy work-life balance; otherwise, I would miss out on all that South Africa had to offer. So, this blog will focus on … Continue reading Lesson Plans & Life Lessons
Have you ever read a massive report with lots of figures and wondered how the authors chose what to analyze? (For an example: Education For All 2000-2015: achievements and challenges). I admittedly, had never pondered this question, when a report is over 500 pages I assume that everything that can be analyzed was analyzed. My thinking on this topic changed when I began to analyze … Continue reading Data Crunching
Five weeks have come and gone since I arrived in Lilongwe – a stretch of time that has seen relatively few difficult days. Even my first week living at the ‘All Creatures’ kennel proved more interesting than it did anything else. Lilongwe is warm and pleasant, a temperament reflected in the welcoming nature of its roughly 1.3 million inhabitants. I need to give a shout … Continue reading Update from Lilongwe: Tax Reform and Girls’ Education
The beginning of the internship has been quite exciting. As an intern in the Monitoring and evaluation team, I am witnessing one of the busiest times of the year because the end line assessments and impact assessments for all the projects are here! The pressure at its peak, people running around the office, hundreds of meetings, people chasing invisible deadlines, is a daily routine in … Continue reading Tooling and schooling around Nairobi
The intern office, or bureau des stagiares is located at the end of a long, spotless hallway on the second floor of the four-story building. We are six interns in all, two senegalese, one canadian, one japanese, a frenchman and myself, each working in pairs on projects ranging from health and sex education to the social sciences and civic engagement. My supervisor is responsible for all programming … Continue reading Notes From The Office: First Month as a Stagiare
It’s hard to believe I’m almost a third of the way through my twelve-week internship! This week, I am in Western Uganda doing what we call “monitoring support and supervision” in three different districts. My colleagues and I have been meeting with the top education officials in each district, as well as visiting lots of schools and observing teachers in their classrooms. It has been … Continue reading Mountains and Matooke
My South Africa adventure has started with my visa application. After a challenging visa application and interview process to get in South Africa, my passport was back to me with the visa after two weeks of painful waiting. Right after a long flight, I landed and straight went to the office. On the way to the office, I was very excited because it was my … Continue reading My IEDP journey in South Africa
Reflections from the first month in South Africa! Hello again! I’ve been in Jo’burg for about a month now, and the time has truly flown by! I’m working in the Research and Development Unit at the organization I’m interning with, but my supervisor was very clear about wanting to provide me with opportunities to do a “little bit of everything”, and she has definitely stayed … Continue reading Language, Literacy, and Lots of Learning
How would you run an education system in a country with 11 official languages? Talking about language policy in South Africa can quickly turn into a spirited discussion, with some arguing that the current system never fully cast-off is racist apartheid policies, others arguing that English should be the only language used and still more arguing that the current system is the best. To understand … Continue reading The Power of Languages
A little more than a month into my internship, and I now have a better idea of the ins and outs of the organization and how it functions. While work was slower during the month of Ramadan, things are slowly picking up post Eid, with all 15 people in the office each day. My first order of business had been aligning the literacy material developed … Continue reading Whose curriculum is it anyway?
The International Educational Development Program 