Scottish secondary schools and their links with developing countries: study

4. Teacher’s Experiences

While there are multiple guides and organisations supporting school partnerships, there is a need for more empirical insight on how schools and teachers actually develop their partnerships and trips. Although the timeframe for this study did not allow for an elaborate in-depth data collection and analysis, exploratory empirical research has been conducted to provide some first insights. The first step for this primary data collection included establishing a list of secondary schools in Scotland which are involved in a partnership and/or visits. Because this study had a specific focus on pupil visits, the schools approached were secondary schools, as they are more likely to incorporate pupil visits. At the start of the study, it became clear that no current list of school links with developing countries existed. To gain insight in the potential number of secondary schools involved in partnerships and visits several organisations, such as the SMP and British Council, were asked to share a list of the schools that participated in their programme. With this list of school links, the second step focused on understanding the kind of links that were established, and the activities theses links include. Qualitative data was collected through approaching ten schools selected from the list. A first exploration of the webpages of these schools showed that they had diverse ways of establishing links and organising school trips and where therefore chosen as to represent a range of school activities and partnerships. Of these ten schools, seven replied and were able to take part in a semi-structured interview. A more detailed discussion of the methodology can be found in appendix III.

The aim of the data-collection and analysis was to answer the following research questions:

• What activities do Scottish secondary schools undertake when partnering with a school in a developing country?
• What is the motivation for these activities?
• What narratives of development aid and global learning are involved?

With the recommendations of both literature review and the partnership guides in mind a fourth theme was included: the sustainability of the links made.

4.1 Partnership Activities and Pupil Visits

A rapid assessment of Scottish secondary schools found that at least 82 schools have a link to a developing country. Fifty-five of these links were with Malawi, most of them with support by the Scotland-Malawi Partnership, the Malawi Leader of Learning (the Glasgow area), Classrooms for Malawi or Connecting Classrooms. With 358 secondary schools in Scotland (Scottish Government 2019), this equates to at least 23% of all Scottish secondary schools having a link with a developing country. Given that this data was collected as part of a rapid assessment, it does not represent all secondary schools and is most likely a conservative estimation of the total amount of secondary school links to developing countries in Scotland (see appendix III). Moreover, as most data has been gathered through organisations linked to Malawi, it is most likely an underestimation of school links outside of Malawi. Time unfortunately did not allow to follow up on each of these schools to understand what kind of link was established. It remains therefore unclear how active all the partnerships are, and what kind of activities are included (e.g. educational projects or fundraising). The interviews with the seven schools, however, do provide some insight in the range of approaches, and will be discussed further below.

What did become clear was that of the 82 schools about two thirds had made a pupil visit or had pupil visits planned. These trips were either made to a partner schools, to community projects or as part of volunteer programmes such as Classrooms for Malawi. Of the seven schools interviewed, only one had not organised a pupil visit, although this school was considering a trip in the next years. Table I give an overview of the seven schools and their links. Four of the schools that have organised visits, visited their partner school and included activities such as joining lessons, sharing cultural activities and visiting tourist sides. These visits were arranged together with the partner school and a travel organisation. Two of the seven schools have had pupils from their partner school visiting them in Scotland. These schools pointed out that this was important to ensure an equitable and reciprocal partnership. However, a former head teacher mentioned that he would be hesitant in getting pupils from partner schools over to Scotland, as it might be really difficult for them to readjust to their home life and would require very good guidance in pre-and post-sessions.

To establish a relationship before the pupil visits were organised, Scottish teachers would visit the partner school. All schools except on (school D) have had teachers from their partner school visiting the Scottish school. These reciprocal teacher visits are seen as important, to establish close relationships and allow for an open discussion on the goals and activities of the partnership. School D, instead, made a visit through a volunteer organisation, where the pupils had joined some development projects. Lastly, School G has an unusual partnership, which includes seven other schools in seven different countries. The schools organise a conference in which students discuss a key global theme, such as immigration or sustainability. Every year the conference is held in one of the eight countries involved in the partnership.

Teacher and pupil visits seem to be an important aspect of the partnership, although the schools also had a range of other activities linked to the partnership. Most schools had shared educational projects, but it was stated that these projects were not always easy to implement because the school curriculums were generally packed. There was a diversity in the approaches schools took to link the partnership to the curriculum. One teacher mentioned that their pupil trip was not linked to the curriculum at all, while some other teachers mentioned that the teachers involved in the partnership sometimes talk about their partner school in their own lessons or show some pictures of previous visits. In some schools there are posters about the partnership in the hallway. One school integrated the partnership in a module of Modern Studies, which is given to all S2 pupils, while in another school the partnership is mainly carried by a small group of engaged pupils. The Connecting Classrooms programme encourages schools to develop joint lessons with the partner school, and a teacher in school E talked about working on developing lessons on the Sustainable Development Goals with their partner school by using the British Council template. However, not all teachers interviewed were well connected to these organisation and programmes and some struggled with questions on how to start thinking about sustainable partnerships and set up an integrated approach in the school.

Table I: Overview of the seven schools included in the interviews

School	Active link?	Partner country	Pupil visits?	Description
School A	Yes	Malawi	Yes	Partnering with 2 primary schools. Visits every three years
School B	No	Zambia	Yes	Partnering with secondary school Visits in 2015 and 2017. After 2017 little activity
School C	Yes	Tanzania	Yes	Partnering with secondary school. Visit in 2016, unlikely to visit again.
School D	No	Peru/Kenya	Yes	Pupil visit in the summer, through volunteer organisation. Did have previous link with Kenya
School E	Yes	Malawi	No	Partnering with secondary school. Are thinking about pupil visits
School F	Yes	Malawi	Yes	Partnering with secondary school. Visit every 2 years
School G	Yes	7 countries, including South Africa	Yes	Yearly conference with the other 7 partners, on a specific (global) theme

The activities in a couple of schools also included the supporting of the partner school through providing funding or resources. These fundraising activities included bake sales, music nights and sponsored events that would be advertised throughout the school and local community. These were occasions where the partnership, and the partner country, would be highlighted and talked about. Some schools mentioned that their fundraising was mainly focused on supporting the partnership, such as providing IPads to ease communication or supporting scholarships and staff coverage for the partner school. It was not always clear whether these activities had been discussed when establishing the partnership, but some teachers did mention that it was also a reaction to local circumstances. One school for example had started a partnership by setting up a shared educational project on hunger but switched to raising money to cover school and staff fees of their partner school, after the country was hit by a draught and attendance dropped.

4.2 Goals and Motivations

The goals of starting a partnership seem to be very similar across the schools, specifically to raise awareness of global citizenship and to “learn from each other”. Two teachers mentioned that their school was situated in a more deprived area, that was not necessarily very outward looking, and therefore the partnership would help make pupils more aware of other countries and “come in contact with kids they normally wouldn’t have contact with”. Another teacher mentioned that in his school the pupils had diverse backgrounds and he was very aware that they would mainly see “white faces”, such as Scottish authors and learn about British history. The partnership allowed him to show positive images of Africa and people of colour and include lessons on stereotypes.

This learning about other countries and having awareness of the lives of people in developing countries was then, by several teachers as well as organisations, linked to understanding inequality and issues such as wealth distribution and immigration. However, the question is whether there is a direct link between experiencing life in a developing country and understanding development issues. In the interviews the teachers seem to assume there was an automatic positive relation between visiting a country (or having a partnership) and understanding sustainable development issues, but as the literature showed, to critically understand global issues would request more than just a personal experience. Teachers for example described the impact a visit would have on their students for example as having an awareness other might be “worse off” or “appreciate what they have more”. This comes close to Simpson’s (2004) description of explaining poverty through the “lotto-logic” of being “lucky” for where you grow up. This logic does not question underlying systems and structures linked to poverty, and overall does not work towards a critical global citizenship.

That is not to say that the personal experience is not impactful. Teachers pointed out that what was most impactful for their pupils were the one-on-one conversations pupils had with their peers in the partner country. Through conversations about each other’s life they gained a strong connection to the other, which can be a good starting point for in-depth reflection. However, in this first exploration it remained somewhat unclear whether and how this reflection was promoted and supported.

Apart from a goal to enhance global learning in their own school, some teachers also expressed the motivation to help improve (access to and quality of) education in their partner school. This goal would for example lead to schools fundraising to send resources to their partnership, or establish scholarships to help pupils progress from primary to secondary school. Some interviewees linked this to contributing to the sustainable development goals, particularly Goal 4: Quality Education. However, the question is whether the impact of all these activities are always understood. One teacher for example struggled with answering the question what the positive value or impact of a partnership is on education. He felt the partnership should aim for sustainable educational improvement, for both the Scottish and the partner school. With the partnership his school had developed, he struggled to see this impact and felt that the partner school had lost its focus on the educational programme during the three years the partnership developed. He suggested it therefore is important to reflect on what it is that schools want to achieve with a partnership.

When supporting a partner school with funds or material resources schools are becoming linked with development work. This would require the schools to ask questions and apply guidelines applicable for development work, such as the ‘do no harm’ and ‘leave no one behind’ principles, as well as evaluate safeguarding principles to reflect on power imbalances. One organisation spoken to during this research for example pointed out that by giving resources and funding to one school, they might become very popular in the region, attracting pupils from other schools. This can leave other schools in the neighbourhood with less and less pupils, which makes it harder to keep these other schools running. In the partner school fees could go up which makes it even harder for marginalized families to let their children go to school. As it stands, we know very little of these potential (unintended) negative consequences. It requires both more research on communities in partner countries, and critical reflection on the impact of funds from participating schools and organisations.

4.3 Equal partnerships and Stereotypes

The literature review showed that although partnerships can challenge stereotypes, develop critical thinking and let pupils link the local with the global, it can also do the opposite when certain development narratives – focussed on the Scottish schools as active agents and the partner school as passive recipient – are reproduced. However, in the interviews all teachers showed their awareness of this tension and mentioned the need to focus on equitable and reciprocal relations. Some teachers had clearly thought about this a great deal:

“For me the partnership has always been about connection and partnership. We work really hard in our school with our kids to recognize this is not kind-a band aid charity kind of nonsense. This is not the kind of thinking that we are better, it is both schools working together (…) hand in hand, to walk together. To kind of support one another and learn from each other. That is really important for us.”

Several teachers had expressed their discontent with the previous connecting classrooms programme for only funding Scottish teachers visiting the partner schools and not teachers from the partner schools visiting Scotland. In the new connecting classrooms programme this is supported and as a result some schools got involved in the programme (again).

While all teachers stressed the need for an equitable partnership, there was a difference in viewing possible imbalances. One teacher for example pointed out he felt some parent, pupils and other teachers thought the partnership was not equally beneficial as the partner school was getting more out of it in terms of funding and new resource material. He was quick to point out that in his view the partnership, and specifically the visits, had a huge impact on the Scottish pupils as well. On the other hand, there were a couple of teachers pointing out that Scottish pupils seemed to get more out of it, as they were the ones able to travel and develop new skills. What all teachers did agree upon was that this needed to be discussed openly with the partner school to make sure both schools were on the same page. The literature review showed that a partnership always includes some power imbalance as the Scottish school is resource rich and the partner school often resource poor (see Wilson 2019; Bourn and Cara 2013 and Oxfam 2007). Schools tried to navigate this tension by providing funding, but with a specific focus on improving education (e.g. scholarships) or for improving the partnership interactions (e.g. providing internet or Ipads). Yet, as we have discussed in section 4.2, these funds can have unintended consequences, which need to be assessed and discussed beforehand.

There was a concern from some teachers that an equitable relationship is not easily reached. One interviewee for example wondered whether a link with a developing country could be equitable as he felt it sometimes looked a bit like “poverty porn”. A sentiment that was reiterated by a teacher of school D who visited development projects with pupils, organised through and external organisation. Reflecting back on the trip he felt that the visit was more charitable than he would have liked and saw that it could become “a bit voyeuristic”. He started thinking about “what image pupils get” of the other country. What he really wanted was to change the dialogue, from a charitable partnership to an equitable partnership, but he wondered how to create this equitable dialogue.

Several teachers mentioned they had “serious issues with ‘building-type’ visits”, similar to comments found in Wilson’s (2019) study. The general picture of these ‘type’ of visits was that you get unskilled people to do skilled work and perpetuate an image of the volunteer as active agent and the host community as passive recipients. However, in practice these school trips that include building activities can be more nuanced. Local contractors and builders will be in charge of the building, while the pupils will be a helping hand for about a week. This raises the question where certain images and narratives come from, and what they mean in practice. The way some projects are promoted, fundraised for and communicated might sketch the image that pupils will have certain impacts that in reality is much more subtle. Wilson’s (2019) study showed that the ‘performance’ of visiting a developing country is still filled with stereotypical images used to communicate about development projects, volunteer activities and experiences. As one organisation pointed out, stereotypical images of Africa are very much ingrained into the whole society and for example emphasised by pictures fundraisers use. Volunteer organisations pointed out that they had been including more and more sessions on responsible volunteering, discussing for example the issues with volunteer tourism and how pupils would communicate their experience. This is an important step in tackling the reinforcing of narratives, although the interviews also showed that post-sessions discussing pupils experienced weren’t always well developed. The language of ‘making a contribution’ still lingered, something that was also mentioned by several organisations who had come across teachers that had visited a developing country and seem to talk a “white saviour narrative”. This suggests that “a pedagogy of social justice” (Simpson 2004) is not yet integrated throughout partnership programmes. Several academic articles have suggested that the activities focused on and language used of students “helping” those in poverty or “contributing to development” should be changed to a focus on intercultural learning (Palacios 2010, Andreotti 2014, Wilson 2019).

Moreover, two Malawian young people shared their experience in this research on schools group coming to “help” paint their home. It showed that the voices of the local community are not always consulted or taken into account. The young people pointed out they would have liked to paint themselves and wondered why this school group came in to do it for them. There can for also be an experience of powerlessness, as some schools or care homes are dependent on the donations school groups bring when they visit. To ensure the stream of donations is kept, the partner schools or partner organisations can agree to activities they actually do not approve of or gain any benefits from. This was touched upon by teachers when mentioning it was sometimes difficult to discuss the desires and needs of the partner school. An understanding and evaluation of the power imbalance in these situations, which can go together with and evaluation of potential (both positive and negative) impact, is essential. It also shows that what is missing, from the wider literature but unfortunately also from this report, is an understanding of the experience of partner communities.

4.4 Sustainable Practice

The literature review and good practice guides highlighted a couple of themes important for sustaining partnerships: communication, commitment and integration of the partnership in the school and wider community. The integration of the partnership in the curriculum is also an important aspect to ensure global learning, especially when it involves schools setting up shared educational projects and tackle sensitive issues such as inequality (see 3.9 Comparing the guides). The next sections will discuss how schools integrated these aspects.

4.4.1 Communication and commitment

Communication between teachers in Scotland and the partner country seemed to mainly go via Whatsapp. Some teachers had almost daily contact with teachers in the partner school, and really appreciated the friendship it established. However, several teachers did remark that discussing aims and needs could be more difficult, as they felt that the teachers in the partner school would not always speak their mind. Establishing a partnership agreement was seen as helpful, to get these expectations, needs and aims clear. This document would then be used during the course of the partnership to reflect whether all parties were still happy with the agreements made. It also gave purpose and focus to the partnership and some schools established a clear structure on how the partnership would be run.

To start a partnership the reciprocal teacher visits were seen as valuable, not only to discuss the partnership face-to-face and establish close relationships, but also to show the intention of setting up a partnership that is equitable. These visits also helped to engage more teachers (and pupils) in the school as the obvious presence of teachers from the partner country in a Scottish school would get conversations going.

Pupil-to-pupil contact was more difficult to organise. Sending written letters to each other was seen as too slow to keep pupils interested, while using digital media was limited. This was partly caused by a lack of devices in the partner country. Some schools mitigated this by providing an iPad or laptops to the partner school. However, using FaceTime, skype or Facebook in a Scottish school proved to be difficult, as IT policies for schools did not allow for easy access to these programmes. Moreover, these ways of contacting the partner school could allow for conversations between whole classrooms but would not cater for individual peer-to-peer contact. This peer-to-peer contact has been shown to have a big impact on pupils’ global learning as it allows pupils to make friends and learn about the other pupils’ culture (Edge and Khamsi 2012).

4.4.2 Integration in school programme

The partnership guides discussed in chapter three emphasised the importance of an integrated school approach to the partnership to make sure it is sustained over time. However, the literature already pointed out that this proves to be difficult for many schools (Bourn 2014, Blum et al 2017). Our interviewees remarked that apart from funding, the structure of the schools in their partner country could also problematize sustainability. The schools that had partnerships with Malawian schools all mentioned the high turn-over rate of Head Teachers in Malawian schools. These Head Teachers are generally reallocated every few years. This could make sustaining a connection with one school difficult. One Scottish school for example had established a link with a school in Malawi, they had two staff members of this partner school visiting Scotland and made preparations to support the school. However, after the visit of the Malawian staff members the head teacher of the Malawian school changed and the new head teacher was not keen on continuing the partnership. Having had this experience, the Scottish school now has a link with two other Malawian schools and as part of this partnership each school has established a committee of teachers, not including the head teacher, that coordinate the partnership. This has proved to be a good way to sustain relations, as even if one teacher leaves, there is a team to carry on. However, establishing this commitment from several staff members is not easy and other interviewees expressed their concern of carrying the partnership mostly by themselves. One Head Teacher pointed out that he had asked teachers to step in and take the partnership forward, but nobody had expressed an interest to lead this process. One organisation involved in supporting school pointed out that partnerships are not necessarily well structured, and can require a lot of work to establish. They might therefore be less attractive than other more structured programmes such as Eco-schools, Right-respecting schools, the Duke of Edinburgh Awards or the World Challenge. Within the structure of these programmes there can also be room for visits to developing country or teaching about global issues. The daunting prospect of sustaining a partnership and setting up your own communication and structures might also be a reason why schools choose to have more short term projects linked to (schools in) developing countries, for example through supporting Classrooms for Malawi, Vinetrust or Mary’s Meals.

These difficulties with establishing a long-term link raise questions about the educational benefits and global learning outcomes. Schools struggled to link their partnership to the wider curriculum and some teacher admitted that mainly those that would participate in a pupil visit would benefit from the partnership. In preparation for the pupil visit, the group of pupils that would go on the trip would take part in preparatory lessons and some schools mentioned specifically including lessons on stereotypes, while others focused more on skills building. Several organisations mentioned that they would deliver lessons in schools, sometimes in preparation of a pupil visit, sometimes in assemblies or one-off lessons. However, from this first exploration of school practices it remains unclear how much of a focus there is on discussing more abstract issues of social justice and inequality.