Teaching in the Asian century

Volume 8 Number 12 December 10 2012 - January 14 2013

Minister Simon Crean visiting the Katha Lab School in Dehli.
Minister Simon Crean visiting the Katha Lab School in Dehli.

Immersing teacher candidates in diverse classrooms in Asia will best prepare teachers for the Asian century. By Catriona May.

With pressure mounting for schools to produce “Asia-literate” students, the Melbourne Graduate School of Education is building links with schools in India and China.

 “A diverse, multicultural experience in the heartland of India,” is how the Daly College Indore’s promotional YouTube video describes the 142-year-old boarding school. Established in 1870 to educate the children of maharajas, the school perches on extensive manicured gardens and offers a long list of educational opportunities for India’s elite.

In densely populated south Dehli, 900 kilometres away the Katha Lab School is teaching some of the poorest of the city’s poor. Founded 24 years ago for the children of the Govindpuri slums, the school is an essential part of the local community, adopting a creative approach to education designed to keep students interested and in school.

“Schooling has to be a really positive experience for these children,” says lecturer Debra Tyler who, with colleague Paul Molyneux, accompanied a group of Master of Teaching candidates to the Katha Lab School. 

“The key is a strong connection with students’ lives and the wider community. If school is boring or seems irrelevant, the children’s families can see ‘more important’ things for the children to do; looking after babies or elderly family members for the girls, and manual employment for the boys,” she says.

Both schools have hosted groups of Master of Teaching candidates this year; Daly College as part of a new Global Studies in Education internship and Katha Lab School as part of the Education, Practice and Place elective.

While each subject has a different orientation – Global Studies towards globalisation and Education, Practice and Place towards disadvantage – they both demonstrate the Graduate School’s commitment to producing Asia-literate teachers.

Australians need “Asia-relevant capabilities”, according to the recent Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, and learning about Asia should be “business as usual” for Australian students. The writers of the national curriculum agree, with Asian literacy listed as a cross-curricular priority.

Fazal Rizvi, an expert in globalisation and education based in the Graduate School, believes the debate has now reached tipping point.

“We’ve reached a stage where the importance of Asia to Australia and Australian education is no longer debated – the question is now how, rather than why,” says Professor Rizvi. “Australia isn’t apart from Asia but part of Asia.”

When Professor Rizvi first came to Australia from India in 1966 he was the only Asian student in his Canberra school of 1200.

“Now it’s almost impossible to imagine a school anywhere in Australia with no students of Asian background,” Professor Rizvi says. “Our demography is changing and with it, how we think about ourselves – the challenge of education is how to recognise this change and respond to it in morally and culturally effective ways.”

According to Professor Rizvi, placing teacher candidates in Asian schools is one practical way of responding to these changes, helping future teachers learn about some of the places their students will come from.

“Many of our pre-service teachers have been to Europe and America, but never to Asia. Our internships seek to rectify that,” he says.

The benefits that spring from Asian teaching placements are not lost on the Federal Government, with Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, and Minister for the Arts Simon Crean recently paying a visit to Katha Lab School to see Master of Teaching candidates and lecturers in action.

“We were delighted the Minister saw our students teaching at Katha Lab School,” Ms Tyler says. 

“Because Katha supports first generation learners, many of whom spoke little English, our teacher candidates had to draw on everything they have learned in the Master of Teaching. Sometimes, they really had to think on their feet when lessons turned out differently from how they were planned – like the computers being too slow for a task.”

For the group visiting Daly College, living and working on campus with Indian teachers and students was a rewarding experience.

“Teacher candidates have become more culturally minded,” says lecturer Daniela Acquaro, who was part of the delegation to Indore. “The internship has broken down stereotypes and broadened understandings. Delivering literacy classes at a local orphanage as part of the school’s commitment to helping underprivileged children really helped them appreciate the diversity of India, and its challenges.”

Ultimately, these placements will help the teacher candidates be more effective in Australian classrooms, says Professor Rizvi.

“Schools are where the initial interest in Asia is developed, where early language training is possible – and where the teachers we prepare will make a significant contribution towards Asian literacy.

Plans are under way to extend internship opportunities to include Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand.

www.education.unimelb.edu.au