Joseph Tsikira, a principal lecturer in the Early Childhood Development (ECE) Department at Masvingo Teachers’ College dreamt of making personal contributions to teacher education development. Tsikira is one of the teacher trainers taking part in UNESCO’s Capacity-Building Programme for Education for Sustainable Development (CAP-ESD). The CAP-ESD programme, also called ‘Sustainability Starts with the Teachers’ enhances the participating teacher-educators understanding of sustainability and provides guidance as to how they may incorporate sustainability principles in their teacher educator role.
Key to the programme is the development of participant-led Change Projects. Change projects are institutional change initiatives to support the integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into teacher education.
Through being involved in the CAP-ESD programme, Tsikira has been able to realise his dream. He has brought together a number of colleagues who share his vision and has come up with a project to produce learning aids and instructional materials from the rubbish dump. Tsikira said:
“On the institutional front, our project is seen as a long overdue, it resuscitates the idea of Audio-Visual Aids that has since gone extinct in teacher education. The Ministry of Higher Education in Zimbabwe is pushing for institutional community engagement programmes and our project is in line with such a call”
The project primarily focuses on how student teachers can be oriented to utilize ‘waste’ at their disposal in producing teaching and learning materials that are both economic and home grown. During this process students acquire an appreciation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) principles.
Practical play is vital for ECE and this prompted the Masvingo Teachers’ College Community of Practice to settle on the production of toys and instructional media among several other projects they initially considered for ESD Change Projects.
A market for these innovative learning resources has already been established by the Colleges’ administration department, which has set aside part of the budget to buy capital resources necessary for the project.
Students are trained to spearhead the institutionalization of instructional materials (e.g. toys) in their practicing schools and communities. When the students complete their Teaching Practice, what will remain is the legacy that the communities will perpetuate.
The waste management project aims to see teachers and students from Masvingo Teachers’ College going out into their various schools and communities to set up waste collection points and conduct workshops on toy production and instructional materials. In the long run these will be community run programmes and the College’s role will simply be the provision of technical support and monitoring. Tsikira added:
“We dream to have this Change Project become a landmark feature of the college calendar and culture. We intend to hold termly mini exhibitions of the products that our students would have produced and we hope to make this a perpetual culture. Beyond college boarders, we wish to engage Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and Better Schools Programme Zimbabwe so that the same exhibitions maybe done in the schools where our students will be doing Teaching Practice”
Inspiring how some teacher educators can turn rubbish into useful materials for learners. That says the environment will not be polluted and the materials used by learners are cheap for they can be made from locally available materials.
I liked the change project of dump materials being turned into visual Aids. This is because the students not only appreciate the issue of improvisation but also the students acquire the value keeping our environment clean
In any change project, leadership is a key success factor because a good leader is a vision bearer of the project transformative processes. Clearly Tsikira is inspiring nod all of participating in this current course can learn from her. Overall, the project is well articulated and is based on a shared vision with teachers and teachers students all fully involved.
n any change project, leadership is a key success factor because a good leader is a vision bearer of the project transformative processes. Clearly, Tsikira is an inspiring project leaders to all of us participating in this current ESD course and I believe we can all learn something from her. Overall, the project is well articulated and implementation based on a shared vision – with teachers and teachers students all fully involved.
Reuse in the 3Rs of waste management is one of the drivers of good change projects. Plastic waste certainly has to be reduced and reused to keep our environment clean.
In the case of Tsikira’s project i’ll like to know an example of an audio aid they have produced in their project and what kind of waste they used to produce it.
“Reuse in the 3Rs of waste management is one of the drivers of good change projects”. This ia my personal observation
Engagement of communities in the project has greater impact and a multiplier effect in sustainability as communities tend to embrace and own the projects
Very impressive to see opportunities in turning waste into toys and educational resources.
É um dos melhores projectos para a saúde e bem estar do ambiente. Na Minha infância, o capim ervas secas, as folhas das plants fruteiras do quintal como lixo, queimava num ponto Nas manhas de frio aquecendo o calor e no local Servia posteriormente para lançar qualquer tipo de semente. Depois aprendi que o aterro sanitário serve para melhorar solos. Menhor sim o reaproveitamento do lixo.