A MEETING OF CULTURES: Considering the Partnership's Future

Fall 2000

AT THE END OF SIX YEARS, THREE PA TRAVELERS EVALUATE THE ACADEMY'S LINK WITH

THE AGA KHAN EDUCATION SERVICE. WHAT DO WE GIVE, AND WHAT DO WE GAIN?

by Theresa Pease

Early last summer, as Phillips Academy teachers were heading east to run math and science workshops in Asia and as teachers from Aga Khan Education Service (AKES) schools were heading west to participate in the Andover Bread Loaf Writing Workshop at PA, another sort of pilgrimage was under way.

For the first time since the early years of the International Academic Partnership, a delegation of administrators from Phillips Academy was traveling to Asia and Africa to see what the excitement is about.

Though they found time on their journey to explore local markets, tour Soweto and witness life in a rural African village, Associate Head of School Rebecca Sykes, Dean of Studies Vincent Avery and Charter Trustee Charles Beard '62 were not sightseeing. Avery and Beard, the latter in his role as chair of the trustees' education committee, are members of the IAP's steering committee along with PA Head of School Barbara Chase. Sykes was Chase's designated representative.

Assuming they liked what they saw, they would recommend to the Board of Trustees this fall a proposal for a second phase of the partnership and for continued funding. Since the IAP's inception six years ago, the academy's operating budget has provided one quarter of the partnership's cost, while the Aga Khan Foundation has contributed the other three-quarters.

"We went there to see in action the programs in which the academy's teachers are involved," says Avery. The overarching goal, he adds, was to assess whether the partnership meets the expectations of both institutions.

In Beard's words, the trio's mission was "to determine how well the IAP is running, to figure out how it should run in the future and to participate in devising a strategic plan to guide the direction of the partnership."

For Avery and Sykes, the journey began with a visit to remote Gilgit, in northern Pakistan. There they sat in on teacher workshops in math and science facilitated by PA faculty and visited a teacher training center run by the Institute of Educational Development (IED). Next came a stop at the IED itself, located at Aga Khan University in Karachi, where they interviewed Pakistani teachers who had attended IAP workshops in Andover or in their homeland.

In Mumbai, the administrators visited two large high schools, observing firsthand some of the hardships educators face in the developing world. One school, for example, operated in two shifts because its facility was so small, and even then 40 or more students had to be crammed into each classroom. It was located in a noisy, highly trafficked area, and also had to contend with a paucity of resources.

In Kenya, their third stop, Avery and Sykes met up with Beard and IAP Director John Strudwick to visit the Aga Khan Academy of Nairobi, where there is an administrative structure modeled after PA's. There they heard David Wandera, an African teacher of English, make friends for the IAP as he spoke movingly to a group of skeptical parents about how insights he gained at the Andover Bread Loaf workshop in Massachusetts had helped him awaken in his students a love for reading and writing poetry.