PCV Monica Ahuja provides classroom management and lesson planning help to teachers at six elementary schools in South Africa
Working for educational equity
By:Tony Di Domizio
February 28, 2003
Monica Ahuja, center, is welcomed to the village in South Africa where she works with a gift of traditional Swazi garb. She will be there until January, 2004.
Ten years ago, one would not find black students and white students together in the same classroom in South Africa.
Today in South Africa, students of all races are learning together, yet the education system in the country is not up to standards and Peace Corps volunteers such as Audubon's Monica Ahuja are helping to make education fair and equal.
Ahuja, 24, has been in the rural South African village of Oakley since April 2002 providing classroom management and lesson planning help to teachers at six elementary schools. She will remain there until January 2004, when her two-year Peace Corps service expires.
"Basically our job is to work with a number of schools and we go in and try to help in management and implementation of a national education system started in South Africa at the end of apartheid," the Peace Corps school and community volunteer said in a phone interview. "We are trying to bring schools in rural areas up to standards set by the country because there is a huge debt between white schools and black schools."
Ahuja arrived in South Africa in January 2002 and spent three months learning African languages and cultural differences before coming to Oakley. While the country has 11 official languages, Ahuja said the corps is trying to make English a medium.
"English is less controversial and most can learn it," she said, adding teachers use English more often than the students. "I say simple things in their languages. In a way, I teach English indirectly to the teachers."
Some of the other 11 languages include Afrikaans, Xi Tsonga, Isi Zulu and Isi Sweti.
Ahuja said she works with teachers from 7 a.m. to about 2 p.m. daily, and while some volunteers use workshops as a teaching tool, she said working individually with the teachers is more successful.
"I find there is not much participation in workshops, so I do more individual work with lesson planning and classroom management," she said. "We are working on banning corporal punishment in the classroom. It is a big part of discipline in the classroom and we want to find an alternative."
In working with teachers, Ahuja said volunteers go through resources and management type ideas, which are different from what Third World teachers are used to. She said these types of cultural conflicts happen and it takes patience in dealing with it.
"You do find conflicts culturally, with how people organize themselves," she said. "There's always challenges that come with seeing those cultural differences."
She said when communication barriers develop, she learns from the experience to conduct and manage things differently.
Ahuja, who received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Gettysburg College and is a Pennsylvania certified elementary education teacher, said past life lessons made her want to volunteer and help others.
"Actually, it was really that I saw I had been allotted lessons in life," she said. "I feel like I have been given a lot and I wanted to give back. I wanted to learn about a culture I am not familiar with."
Ahuja, who is working in mid-90 to 100-degree weather because it is summer there, said when her service is up in 2004, she plans to return home and work toward her master's in teaching or psychology.
"I know I am supposed to work with children," she said. "That is where my heart is."
She said she is not always happy with the results of her efforts, but for the most part, she has no regrets and would never give it up.
"You find that if you have certain dreams and hopes, not all will pan out," she said. "There are so many I could have, and this is picking up a few of them and going toward that. Little successes make the experience worthwhile."
©Montgomery Newspapers 2003
