Wintec News

Stepping Up 2 Study

Posted On: Friday, 18 June 2010

Every Monday night Somali high school and tertiary students converge at Wintec for self-directed study in a supportive environment. The aim is to nurture and develop the students’ academic literacy skills with the possibility of pathways into Wintec courses.

Radiya Ali is a year 12 student at Fairfield College studying information management, computing and mathematics. Radiya regularly attends the Stepping Up 2 Study classes for help with her assignments and to utilise the support network.

She says: “The Stepping Up 2 Study class is very beneficial, especially when I have a difficult assignment that I need extra help and support to complete.”

To prepare her for tertiary studies, she is interested in enrolling for the Certificate in University Preparation (CUP) course at Wintec in the near future and then hopes to study human resources and accounting.

Some of Wintec’s foundation study students attend this class as a bilingual tutor enables them to understand their workloads better. 

Two young Somali tutors lead the class, in cooperation with a teacher experienced in working with students who have English as an additional language.

Ekran Awad, a Wintec graduate with a Graduate Diploma in Teaching English Speakers of Other Languages is one of the tutors. She helps students with their literacy and reading skills.

Wintec Occupational Therapy student Fatuma Salat ensures the students attend class regularly and takes care of administration needs.  

Jo de Lisle – one of Wintec’s English Language tutors – directs the class and provides help with the students’ literacy skills and reading comprehension. An experienced teacher, Jo currently runs the English Link assessment service at the Waikato Migrant Resource Centre.

The Stepping Up 2 Study programme is funded by Wintec’s community funding and managed by Hamilton Multicultural Services Trust. It is part of an initiative to encourage successful students from ethnic communities in Hamilton to act as role models and provide support for other community members who are also keen to succeed in high school and tertiary study at institutions such as Wintec. The plan is for the Somali group to be the first of many Ethnic communities to support the aspirations of their youth in this way.