Education Fiji Project #8763

Educational Capacity Building in Fiji

by Action Change (Formerly GVI Trust)

Project Report | Dec 24, 2013
Vinaka vaka levu!

By Sophie Birkett | Charitable Trust manager

Vinaka vaka levu!

That means thank you in Fijian and a big thank you to you for supporting our communities in Fiji in 2013 from GVI Fiji and the GVI Charitable Trust.This Christmas and New Year, the schools are close but that does not mean we can's start preparing for 2014!

At Navunisea School, Silana there is no library and very few books, which has impeded the development of reading skills. However, fundraising and donor support is providing us with funds which we hope to contribute towards combating these issues.

At Ratu Meli Memorial School, our classes have come along nicely in 2013:

Class one has learnt about the letters A-Z and started reading. They learned about the nurse, the doctor and the safety rules on the road. Also they like to sing the song “I am a music man” and “old Mc Donald.” Every morning we start to “read” the rhymes “humpty dumpty”, “twinkle twinkle”, “georgie porgie” and “pat a cake.”
Class two likes to write and draw stories. They often do group activities. In mathematics they work very hard.
Class three, our smallest one, is very enthusiastic. In P.E. they often play rugby and soccer. This is obvious because there are eight boys and one girl.
Class four, our biggest one (23 students) work very hard. They do lots of reading and spelling. Once a week they have a library lesson. They visit the school library, chose a book and try to read it out loud.
The upper classes also have some computer lessons. Typing and working with computers is very important, especially for the students they’ll go to high school on the mainland. The high schools expect them to be able to work with computers.

Thank you for supporting these classes, children, teachers and communities in Fiji, these progresses are not possible without you. We hope to bring you more exciting news next year!

All the best

GVI Fiji

Links:

http://www.gvi.org

Permalink

Oct 31, 2013
Harvesting Ratu Meli Memorial School's vegetables

By Sophie Birkett | Charitable Trust manager

Aug 15, 2013
Monitoring success of one-on-one Tuition Programs

By GVI Fiji | Fiji Base

Fiji 1-to-1

Dear friend,

I hope this finds you well. I have a very exciting report for you today. Quite a long factual report but we hope the data shows clearly the impact this project is having on the children in Fiji.

Global Vision International introduced a one-on-one tuition program at Ratu Meli Memorial School in January 2012. The aim of the program is to help those students who are furthest behind in their class to reach the same academic level as their peers. With the success of the remedial program documented at the end of 2012 through feedback from the class teachers, an additional goal was set for 2013 to gather more quantitative data in order to measure the impact the program was having on the recipient students. This data would then be used to track the progress of students on the 1-on-1 program and also help GVI to tailor make the program to further meet the specific needs of the pupils.

The qualitative data gathered at the end of 2012 indicated that there was a proven need for the one-on-one tuition program and that it was having a positive impact on the academic capabilities and confidence of participating students. Whilst this feedback has proven extremely useful for the GVI Education Project, the purpose of generating quantitative data would be to provide further evidence of the success and provide greater scope for analyzing the progress of individual pupils and the one-on-one program as a whole. The first step to compiling quantitative data on the one-on-one program was to gather benchmark statistics to gauge the current capability levels of the students on the program. In collaboration with the class teachers, GVI wrote short tests for each year group that focused on assessing the numeracy and literacy of the pupils. Along with the teachers’ input, GVI also used class learning records compiled historically by volunteers, which identify specific achievement targets for each subject and student.

The initial results indicated that most students were having difficulty in either Math or English but rarely was a student behind in both subjects. Thus, the volunteers were able to tailor their one-on-one lessons accordingly, increasing the impact of the sessions. During the penultimate week of Term 1, the students were given the same tests and the results were recorded following the same procedure as when they were first delivered.

Almost every student showed all-round improvement in their test scores which is a hugely positive result for the program. It also reinforces the conclusions made from the qualitative data gathered at the end of 2012; the one-on-one tuition program is helping the students that are furthest behind to catch up to the level of the rest of the class. The results also showed a relationship between the number of pupils in a class that are on the one-on-one program and the overall improvement in results. Those classes with the fewest pupils on the one-on-one had the greatest improvement in results. The most likely explanation for this trend is that these pupils received more tuition than in classes where the volunteer had to split their time across a greater number of pupils. Thus, one of the most important lessons learnt from this first set of testing is that the ratio of one-on-one students to volunteers needs to be more evenly distributed so as to ensure that each student has sufficient time with volunteer tutors.

Since the inception of the one-on-one program GVI has been building profiles for each of the pupils receiving additional tuition. These profiles are used to track their progress, record successful teaching techniques and set specific learning goals and timelines for individuals. The results from these first two rounds of testing will be used to enrich the student profiles further, helping to document progress and provide a more comprehensive understanding of individual students’ needs for the volunteer tutors.

The data and feedback gathered from the one-on-one tuition program has shown both qualitatively and quantitatively that it has greatly contributed to improving numeracy and literacy at RMMS, which is one of GVI Fiji’s key goals for the Education program. The results have also provided invaluable information which can be used to develop the program further and ensure that the volunteers are able to have maximum impact while involved with the school. Currently the results generated can only provide a short term indication of the impact the program is having on the pupils’ academic performance, but in time the qualitative and quantitative data gathered will provide a wider outlook of the improvements achieved through one-on-one tuition.

Many thanks as always for all your support. I hope this shows just how much of a sucess this project has been with your support.

All the best

GVI Fiji

Links:

Charitable Trust website

Permalink

‹ 1 ... 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.