Posted on: Thursday, June 13, 2002

Education
Teachers heading to South Africa

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

His father was not allowed to go to school in apartheid South Africa, but Yunus Peer escaped.

His parents mortgaged all they had to get him to Swaziland, where he attended school with Nelson Mandela's children.

That path led him through Afghanistan, then New Jersey, to the University of Hawai'i, where he received two bachelor's degrees, and to the University of New Hampshire, where he earned a master's degree in public administration.

Now a social studies and world religions instructor at Punahou School, Peer today will leave Hawai'i with a group of teachers for his childhood home. They will spend five weeks in South Africa leading a series of math and science teaching workshops — an effort to help build up the education system in rural areas that was neglected during and after apartheid.

The project operates under the auspices of Teachers without Borders, an international nonprofit group that brings teachers together to improve education systems and help countries with developing economies.

"It's bringing my two homes together," said Peer, who attended the Indian Primary School and the Indian High School under apartheid in Port Shepstone, Kwa-Zulu, Natal. "The one area that I could contribute is education."

South Africa has been a democracy only since 1994, when the apartheid government collapsed under international pressure. The education system in the country, which for generations denied access to nonwhites, is still being rebuilt, Peer said.

Four Punahou teachers — Peer, John Proud, Michael Hu and Will Best — will be joined by Michael Vogel from Prentice Hall in Chicago for the trip. "They get to see South Africa from the local point of view," Peer said. "They live with locals. They don't see tourists. You don't realize how much you have as an American until you leave the country."

Teachers discuss everything from the art of teaching to classroom management. Most of the teachers in South Africa manage large classrooms of 50 or more students and rely on the lecture method more than Hawai'i teachers, Peer said.

It is the second year that a group of Hawai'i teachers will make the journey. The group that went last year worked with 100 teachers in two South African provinces — in Port Shepstone and at the Vaal Triangle Technikon, Vanderbijl Park, Gauteng. This year they will run two sessions and work with 200 teachers. Next year, Peer hopes they will double their efforts again to reach 400 teachers.

Already, test scores have improved in the schools where the Hawai'i teachers worked, and Peer estimates that thousands of students have benefitted. "This whole workshop is turning out to be much bigger than I expected," he said.

Punahou School underwrote the project last year to get it started. This year, the members of Rotary International's District 5000, which includes all of Hawai'i, raised $4,000 for the project and gave it a $10,000 grant, which will help pay for the plane tickets.

For more information, visit www.punahou.edu/acad/ss/peer/sa or www.teacherswithoutborders.org.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.