Marčth van Schalkwyk (South Africa)
Presentation
"Building a Nation:
Thirty Students at a Time"
Marčth van Schalkwyk
Marčth achieved a specialised Drama degree at the University of Stellenbosch in 1999 and continued with her Honours degree, specialising in Community Theatre, the year there after. During her time at university she stared several community theatre projects, working with underprivileged farm workers in the greater Stellenbosch area. She lectured in Performing Arts at London’s West Thames College from 2002 – 2004 and completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Further Education during this time. She was awarded her Master’s degree in Drama from the University of Stellenbosch and focussed her research on using interactive theatre techniques to teach learning disabled and difficult students. She returns to South Africa in 2005 to direct and facilitate several community theatre projects primarily focussing on identity creation and establishment, as well as educational projects. She starts as Academy Director at New Africa Theatre in 2009 and apart from her normal duties as head of an academy, she is also developing a new diploma course in performing arts to compliment NATA’s current certificate course. She has started on her Doctorate in Drama at the University of Stellenbosch in 2009 and is conducting a study on impact assessment of performing arts projects.
Presentation Overview
The current South African educational landscape makes for depressing viewing. Not only is quality tertiary education only affordable to either the very smart or those with means, but primary and secondary education is not providing the greater student body with a quality basic education. In a country with a very high illiteracy and unemployment figure this is suicide. If you add that more than half of South Africans lives below the breadline, the situation becomes a recipe for disaster.
New Africa Theatre Association (NATA) aims to curb this impending disaster by offering a one year tertiary Performing Arts qualification, which is not only very affordable, but also aims to improve basic, life and communications skills. Our teaching philosophy aims to encourage and to empower and to turn our students from struggling and disadvantaged youths to a force that not only positively improves their own lives, but to also have a positive impact on those around them. Success for our students is not viewed as only being employed in the Performing Arts sector upon completion, but also by continuing with tertiary qualifications or finding gainful employment. We firmly believe that our Performing Arts programme is more than just another arty qualification, but that we are actively busy with building our nation.
This paper will look at our vision, our teaching methodology and programme, but will also explore the statement that we are building our nation, thirty students at a time.
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