After school centre promotes “funducation”
With more families being headed by working parents there is increasing concern about what the children are doing after school. One group of women from Belize City is solving the problem by turning the traditional idea of an after-school programme into what they term “funducation”. Jacqueline Woods reports.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The concept may not be new, but providing educational after care for primary school children is becoming more institutionalised in the country. Since September third, FAST, a “Funducation” After School Training institution has been providing such a service to primary school children.
Viola Blake, Co-ordinator, FAST
“I noticed that kids are not getting the attention that they deserve. In schools, the teachers are trying their best, but the kids are still left lacking. Here the one to one helps the child to feel more comfortable doing the work. The tutors find a very fun way to do it and nothing pleases us more than when a parent says, “My goodness, my child actually likes to do the work.”
Once a child is enrolled in the programme, the institution picks up the student from school and takes them to FAST. There, the children are tutored and are involved in a number of fun and educational activities.
Maria Howie, Head Tutor, FAST
“As soon as they reach here, the first thing we do is we see that they do all their homework. We check it over and afterwards we give them classes in the area they’re really weak in. Afterwards we do extra activities around the same lessons and if they have any other subjects that they need help with, then we do help them.”
The idea behind the programme is to improve grades and increase interest in school, but more importantly, it also supervises children whose parents are busy at work.
Elisa Huang, Managing Director, FAST
“Whenever the parents hear about it, they’re really surprised and they really like the idea of this school because most of them are working, so they don’t know where to leave their kids or leave them unsupervised; so they bring them here to us. So we have some kids that come in Mondays and Wednesdays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays, or some of the some in all five days.”
Maria Howie
“We give them one to one attention. We take them up individually and we give them little quizzes, so they get individual attention. We try our best.”
The after-school program is open to both primary and high school students and runs until 6:30 in the evenings. The price of the service is just over six dollars an hour. Reporting for News 5, Jacqueline Woods.
There are plans to expand the computer classes and also offer language courses. If you would like more information on how your child can attend FAST, please contact Viola Blake at telephone number 34257.
