During the first weeks of October, Dr Stephen Fyson travelled to Sri Lanka and Poland to assist in the development of Christian schools. The trip was sponsored by Pacific Hills Christian School’s Christian Education Development Program, which facilitates such development relationships.
The King’s International College in Ja Ela, Sri Lanka, has a pioneer team of young Christian educators, who love their children and love learning. Dr Fyson spent a week exploring the theme of ‘Starting Points for Teaching as a Christian’, part of a program under development as part of the Alphacrucis Continuing Professional Learning program. His colleague, Colin Lees from Pacific Hills Christian School, provided creative opportunities to explore alternative models of teaching in the classroom.
“Sri Lanka is such a beautiful place, and so were these people”, noted Dr Fyson. “It has been a real pleasure returning to support them and to see what God has done and continues to do.” Dr Fyson also acknowledged their help in the ‘Starting Points’ course development: “The interaction and feedback with the course material was also a real help in working to shape this program – it will be better because of their involvement!”
Poland is a country still undergoing reform after being released from Communist rule in 1989. It was amazing to see how churches are working through Christian schooling to bless their nations. Dr Fyson took workshops with representatives from five Christian schools (including one about to open its doors for the first time) and ran leadership and development sessions for teachers and school leaders:
“These people are so warm, open to new ideas, and compassionately committed” Dr Fyson reflected. “It will be exciting to watch how God continues to bless their work into the future”. And of Poland generally, Dr Fyson gave this reminder:
​“We must continue to pray for these Christian pioneer programs and the people implementing them – there is still much to be considered as they work out how to more freely express their Christian hope across their nation.”
​On Thursday 17th May, Alphacrucis College was honoured to welcome Mr Samuel Davis Hiire, Director of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) in Uganda. Mr Hiire was accompanied by Ms Sue Skuthorpe, CEO of New Hope International.
ASCI has 170 affiliated schools in Uganda, a country where 90% of the population are committed Christians who attend church regularly. Although relatively small by African standards, Uganda is about the same size as the United Kingdom. Within its 241,000 square kilometres, 42 million people live, of whom 48% are aged 14 and under.
This situation poses immense challenges for educators in Uganda. The current educational situation in the country has been described as ‘dysfunctional’, largely because of short-sightedness in planning, weak infrastructure, poor governance and the lack of challenging training provided to teachers.
During his visit to Alphacrucis’ Parramatta campus, Mr Hiire met with three senior members of the Faculty of Education, Arts and Social Science: Professor Mark Hutchinson (Dean), Dr David Hastie (Associate Dean) and Dr Stephen Codrington (Director of School Governance and Leadership Development).
The meeting represented a fascinating exchange of ideas, knowledge and insights as the challenges of Christian Education in our two continents were discussed.
Associate Dean of Education, David Hastie, reports on working with Austrade in Indonesia, where there is a remarkable work among Christian schooling organisations.
Dr Stephen Codrington, who joined Alphacrucis’ Parramatta campus in January this year, is undertaking several overseas fieldwork research trips this year to collect material for use in six new Geography courses being developed for our new BEd(S) degree, and to update ten books he released in 2017 to support the new International Baccalaureate Geography syllabus.
In late March and early April, Stephen spent nine days in Bhutan, the tiny nation sitting between India and China that is the last kingdom in the Himalayas. Stephen’s research was focussed on two specific areas – the country’s distinctive approach to sustainable tourism, and its unique concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH).
Initially developed by the fourth King of Bhutan, Jingme Singye Wangchuk, GNH was designed to be a measurable alternative to other indicators such as Gross National Product (GNP), replacing the traditional emphasis on material values with a focus on values, morals and human welfare.
It is wonderful to see what is being achieved in Christian education around the world. On a recent trip to Indonesia, CFS staff Professor Mark Hutchinson and Dr David Hastie visited a number of theological colleges and universities in the Christian tradition.
​“It is amazing to see what Indonesian Christians are doing through school education”, noted Dr Hastie. “The Pelita Harapan Foundation’s model of developing sustainable Christian schooling cultures is astounding in terms of the promise it has for Indonesia’s development.”
Imagine a group of high level international grammar schools which exist to support a group of middle ranking schools, which in turn exist to help resource and extend schools for the poor in some very remote places of this vast archipelago. It is a bracing vision, which sees Christian teachers serving all levels of society in an entirely authentic, local way.
“We in Australia can learn a lot from this sense of strategic educational vocation”, noted Professor Hutchinson. “Imagine Christian schools working together to deliberately extend ‘educational lift’ through regional Australia in a systematic way. As an historian, there are great parallels to this in the medieval and early modern period, but the Teachers College at UPH bleeds a daily commitment to the good of their people which is hard to match in contemporary times.”
In addition to this, Professor Hutchinson and Dr Hastie visited STT Intheos Surakarta and SBBTI Jakarta, which have similar (if smaller) approaches to combining pastoral and teacher training. Founded by an AC graduate, Pontus Pardede, to walk around the STT Intheos campus is to be reminded of the tremendous work done by Australians and our friends in the region. Invited to speak at a Student Camp some 90 minutes away from the main campus, the joy and enthusiasm of young Indonesian initial teacher trainees was infectious, and well worth supporting.
“We would love to see greater interaction between Indonesian and Australian Christian schools,” noted Dr Hastie. “Teaching occurs in communities of practice. We could learn a great deal from each other in terms of our common calling under God for the formation and training of the young. To meet the Rector of Universitas Pelita Harapan, Jonathan Limbong Parapak, and realize the continuing impact of a program such as the Colombo Plan for Indonesians, is to stretch towards what might be possible if there were a Christian program with similar aims.”
The Centre for the Future of Schooling will be seeking to develop student and staff exchanges, and pathways programs, with Indonesian colleges and schools. If you are interested, please contact the Centre: cfs@ac.edu.au.