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(604) 520-5400

 

 

 

Child education, empowerment subject
of South Africa program

These child educators from
South Africa are studying at
UBC on a cross-cultural
exchange. Carol Ebner of
Douglas College’s ECE
faculty helped organize the
program and is teaching
one of their courses.

Front: Cheryl Borgches.
Middle: (I. to r.) Margaret
Shoko, Xolelwa Mbilase,
Gloria Britain, Maria
Mosele Khoabane.

Back: Khanyisile Irene
Khumalo.

 

 

 

 

 

hen there is conflict in the

Persian Gulf, cholera in Latin
America, and recession and un-
employment in Canada, children
bear more than their share of the
suffering and poverty.

In South Africa, black children
also have to deal with an ideology
based on racism, says a child
educator from Capetown. “Black
children are discriminated against
in our country,” says Margaret
Shoko. “The media in South Africa
only show clean, happy white
children. This gives black children
a negative view of themselves.”

Shoko is one of six child
educators out of eighty South

Africans who applied to spend the
summer in a special program of
Early Childhood Education cour-
ses at UBC’s Child Studies Centre.
She says the skills learned here in
Canada will be used to affect posi-
tive change for children in her
country. “We would like to take
skills we learn here back to South
Africa and use them to empower
people, especially children.”
Douglas College Early
Childhood Education Instructor
Carol Ebner helped to organize the
curriculum for the program, and is
teaching one of the courses.
“Cross-cultural education
means you have to be flexible.

With this group, it’s going to be
crucial,” says Ebner. “You have to
know what a culture wants from
its children. I’ve got to find out
what they want their children to
be. My course outline is standard
ECE, but it doesn’t reflect what
I'm going to do, because I don’t
know yet.”

Child Studies Centre Director
Glen Dixon notes that the pro-
gram, funded by the Canadian
Department of External Affairs’
South Africa Education Trust
Fund, is more comprehensive than
the average exchange. “We've
pulled in resource people from art,
music, and physical education
areas; from our very best
educators concerned with young
children,” he says.

 

please see “South Africa” on page 2

 

 

  

 

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