Volunteer teaching in South Africa: learning to make a difference

VVolunteer teaching is one of the most popular forms of ‘voluntourism’ worldwide, and if that sparks your interest, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to volunteer in education on a trip to South Africa. 

The Bulungula Incubator (BI) is a non-profit community development NGO running a project on the Wild Coast of Eastern Cape province. In this rural location, remoteness, poverty, and illiteracy have severely affected the early learning opportunities of the children of Nquileni village.  

Ensuring access to quality education for pre-school children aged 3 to 6 is the main priority of the Jujurha Early Learning Centre, which includes after-school care, a library and primary-school learner interventions. Volunteer teacher opportunities at BI are on a needs basis determined by the local community. For this reason, and because you’ll be working within a vulnerable community and with small children, applicants are pre-skills matched and screened thoroughly – and long-term volunteers are preferred. 

In Port Elizabeth, retired schoolteachers can volunteer to teach as part of Calabash Tour’s education volunteer programme. Calabash’s Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA)-accredited programme focuses on the structured transfer of skills, to build local teaching capacity within the community. Calabash Tours has used their volunteer programme to develop travel philanthropy models in conjunction with the Calabash Trust. The result has been the development of school libraries, nutrition support in schools and pre-schools, and educational resources for schools. 

The Volunteer Africa 32° South (VA32) volunteer programme works with 6 peri-urban schools in the Chintsa area of Eastern Cape. They build networked IT labs and facilitate computer literacy for students, helping them gain vital hands-on computer skills. The goal of the FTTSA-accredited programme is to develop information technology infrastructure and resources in the schools and build skills capacity among the teachers.  

Volunteers need only basic computer literacy (an educational background is preferred), as you’ll work fully supervised by postgraduate students from Nuremberg University, teaching the children computer skills. VA32 also collaborates with an eco-schools programme that teaches learners environmental awareness via computer applications. 

In KwaZulu-Natal, Chennells Volunteer Projects supports schools, orphanages, creches, feeding schemes and skills centres in Eshowe and the surrounding rural areas, and has a variety of roles for volunteers to fill. 

Teaching English reading, writing and conversational English, as well as basic adult literacy and numeracy are other educational options that will be welcome in many parts of South Africa, if you’re considering volunteering.