Improving South African schooling

Thursday, September 22, 2011 - 14:10 in Psychology & Sociology

When South African Al Witten was a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Gradate School of Education (HGSE), he dreamed of connecting Harvard scholars with educators in his homeland. Slowly, that dream is becoming a reality. The effort started several years ago when Witten had coffee with HGSE Professors Robert Peterkin and Jerry Murphy. The three devised a plan to connect South African school administrators and their collaborators at the University of Johannesburg with Harvard experts on education leadership. Their goal was to reform public schools from the inside. The goal is in keeping with longtime efforts at Harvard to improve U.S. and South African public education collaboratively. Harvard President Drew Faust and HGSE Dean Kathleen McCartney have visited South Africa to support collaborations in leadership, teaching, and learning. “We have been there,” said Deborah Jewell-Sherman, a senior lecturer on education at HGSE and principal investigator of the project envisioned by Witten, “preparing them...

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