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ReefDoctor Implements new curriculum for Ifaty and Mangily Primary Public schools
Apr 15, 2009
Since 2005 ReefDoctor has been trying to implement a specific curriculum into the public school system to teach children ages 8-12 about their marine and associated environments and how to use these resources from these environments more sustainably. Implementing a curriculum into the school systems is the best way to create a longer term foundation of education on the marine environment and sustainable resource utilisation for each village in the Bay of Ranobe. Teaching the children will mean that they will teach their parents what they have learnt.
Our first attempts at putting a specific marine curriculum into the school system was by us working with another NGO called Aid and Action who created a pilot marine curriculum for the SW schools system of the Tulear region alongside WWF, the ministry of Education, the education boards for Toliara (DREN and CISCO) and another German NGO called GTZ. ReefDoctor managed to involve the public primary schools of Ifaty and Mangily and sent 4 teachers from these schools (2 from Ifaty and 2 from Mangily) to the training and workshops held by the head of environmental education for CISCO, Mr. Calvin between June and August 2005.
This curriculum was then implemented into the schools in September 2005 for the school year till June 2006 and throughout this time ReefDoctor continued to work with the teachers and provide feedback to Aid and Action. After the year’s pilot project there where some issues which restricted the teaching of the curriculum, the main issues where;
- Teachers had little understanding or previous knowledge of basic biology, marine environment and no knowledge of the Vezo tribe and their fishing techniques
- Training and workshops only talked about the curriculum and the lesson plans, the teachers where not taught the basics
- Teachers where just repeating the curriculum lesson plans
- The teachers did not have copy of curriculum or any materials for themselves or for the pupils, teachers where using their notes from workshops!
- Due to teacher shortage in all public schools, the curriculum could only be taught once a week for 10 minutes when a break in national curriculum allowed it
These where some serious issues with implementing any new subject/curriculum into the public school system and though ReefDoctor with the schools gave feedback to Aid and Action the project was only a pilot project for one year and would be no longer continued.
With this information and with continued support from the Ifaty and Mangily schools and children ReefDoctor decided to set up its own marine curriculum using the past curriculum as a guide and other curriculums attained from our own research.
Benjamin de Ridder and Carola Zardo ReefDoctors new Environmental Education Officers where hired to undertake this project from the end of 2006 and after only 3 months research and curriculum creation they where ready to start training and workshops for Ifaty, Mangily Tsevenoe and Amboaboaka teachers between January and August 2007.
ReefDoctors new curriculum has a focus on the marine environment with particular examples on the coral reef system of the Bay of Ranobe and Madagascar in general. Main subjects covered are;
- General environment and ecology
- Oceans and the marine environments
- Littoral (coastal) environments
- Mangroves
- Coral reefs
- Human impacts
- How to use the resources from the marine and coastal environments more sustainably
In addition the curriculum was created from the feedback taken from the Aid Action pilot project and to address the main issues we;
- Taught the teachers the basics from the marine and associated environments to the Vezo tribe their culture and history and their fishing gear, which are bad and which are good and what new techniques can be used, plus simple sustainable resource utilisation practices
- Each teacher was given the curriculum, lesson plans and posters
- Materials where given to the pupils, mainly lesson plans question sheets for each pupil and per 5 pupils a small booklet of images relating to subject maters in the curriculum
- The curriculum lessons where integrated into the national curriculum so questions from it could be simply added into the national curriculums of natural science and geography, so no need to create a new class and thus time slot to teach it.
- Teachers will be given bi-monthly workshops throughout the school year teaching them more about the curriculum, taking feedback and helping them create new lesson plans for each following month.
In addition to the training and workshops, specific parts of the curriculum where piloted into the schools of Ifaty and Mangily from March till June so that teacher-pupil feedback could be given and seen (ben and Carola attended all classes done once a week) before it was implemented fully to all schools for the school year Sept 07 to June 08.
During March and June there was great feedback from the kids on these new class and also ReefDoctor taught the children attending the ReefDoctor kids club some of the themes, so some children where being taught the curriculum twice a week.
From a socio-economic survey undertake in April it was clear that the children where telling their parents about what they had learnt. However as the parents stated in the survey and to their children, ‘yes we know there is a problem but to solve it we need alternatives to bring in money and food for our children and the main problem to that is we only know how to fish’
On September 2007 the new curriculum under the backing and authorisation of the education Ministries of Toliara DREN and CISCO, was officially implemented into the schools of Ifaty and Mangily for classes 8-12 and unfortunately due to lack of funding (for workshops attendance and materials) the schools of Tsevenoe and Amboaboaka could not for this school year implement the curriculum.
This curriculum will be taught to some 300 pupils from both schools and will start on the longer term foundation of teaching the children, the future bread winners, to understand their environment better and know of ways they can manage and use the precious resources in a more sustainable manner. The information the children pass onto their parents and from ReefDoctors and FIMIHARA’s continued sensibilisation work and involvement of these communities with the creation of more MPAs and no take zones, will aid in the general education of the population.
ReefDoctor hopes to generate more funding to involve and train more teachers and schools so that all schools in the Bay in each village has a marine/environmental curriculum.
