The Perivoli Schools Trust aims to address the inadequacies of nursery school education in Sub Sahara Africa. The programme’s (not unambitious) goal is to transform the prospects of the region in a generation.
It is our belief that with more stimulating nursery school experiences young people will make more of their formal education and so grow up to make better informed life choices.
Perivoli Schools Trust (Holdings) is a Mauritian domiciled Purpose Trust. Its Trustees are James Alexendroff, Tom Newton and Soraj Bissoonauth.
A high percentage of children entering sub-Saharan African state education systems aged six or seven drop out of primary school before the age of ten. A large number of girls fall pregnant from the age of thirteen. As a result too few students complete their education.
One of the accepted challenges is that children have not been sufficiently stimulated through play activities in their formative years. This leaves them ill-equipped to deal with school life and life thereafter.
The informality of the nursery school sector makes government oversight hard to achieve and assistance difficult to fund and direct. So nursery schools teachers are left to do their best with limited training and resources.
The programme shows nursery school teachers, through a course of sixteen Training Modules delivered over a two year period, how to manage their class rooms and how to make educational toys from waste materials and, in so doing, the value of play.
In addition, our Perivoli Trainers undertake regular class visits to the nursery school teaches to assist with the implementation of the Programme. They then provide ongoing termly supervision on an indefinite basis.
Nursery school teachers who complete the programme are awarded a Perivoli Certificate in what is invariably a moving ceremony, being the first formal moment of recognition many have ever enjoyed.
The collection of data is a central feature of the programme to assist in monitoring its reach and directing the Trainers more effectively.
Trainers are issued with tablet computers to record details to a central database of each interaction with teachers.
A three year study aiming to explore the “Lived Experiences and Wider Social Impacts of the Perivoli Schools Trust’s Early Child Care and Education Model” is being undertaken jointly by the University of Bristol and the University of Namibia to assess the impact of the work of the Perivoli Schools Trust in Namibia.
Separately, we aim to track many of the children through primary school (and potentially beyond) to assess the impact of the programme.
The informality of the nursery school sector makes government oversight hard to achieve and assistance difficult to fund and direct. So nursery schools teachers are left to do their best with limited training and resources.
