‘Growing up in an unequal and unfair society, feeling constant shame, sadness and anger, stirs your guts like little else can do. Solution? Become a teacher so that you can go out and set the world right by teaching what you believe are honest ways and honest information. But be careful how you do it – you’re more valuable in your job than out of it.

Result? Burn out and more anger. You leave education to go and get your own mind back, but education doesn’t leave you. There has to be a way past this failing system!

Ten years after my resignation, when my anger had subsided, the puzzlement started to piece together the myriad of thoughts that teaching had stirred around an alternative and more positive approach to education. I had taught across the racial lines of the Apartheid divides, from primary school to teacher training, from the bushveld to urban and state of the art schools.

Now something was combining all these elements with my determination to unravel the mystery behind failing education systems. 

The system that has emerged from these experiences was purely a response from the gut and as it evolved, I realised I was combining my teaching experience with, and drawing inspiration from, theorists  such as Maslow, Bruner, Piaget, and Vygotsky.

It was further inspired and affirmed by my interest in Fibonacci, patterns in nature, passion for music, love of the arts in general, and the web of connection that nature has woven, ticking away in mysterious, functional, clockwork precision.’

Colette van Niftrik has a BA Degree (Psychology and English) with a Post Graduate Diploma in Senior Primary Education. She experienced teaching amongst a wide variety of cultures in South Africa where there are eleven indigenous languages. She is a second-generation Dutch immigrant and feels deeply enriched by the experience of growing up in the cultural cross-over.  

Qwisp®'s first public introduction was at TECH 2017, Transforming Education Conference for Humanity, organised by UNESCO and The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace in Visakhapatnam, India.

Where to from here?

The vision

Qwisp® has the potential to become a global educational app. It is also well-suited to a series of workbooks for learners who do not yet have access to the internet.

As the Qwisp approach is universal, the vision is for it to be used globally so that a vast number of children could be learning in collaboration – rich and poor; urban and rural - a global learning community with online facilities for teachers to support each other with materials and advice.

The prototype for such a web platform has been created.

The next step

To go into the pilot phase we need to set up an infrastructure and assemble a team to apply existing curriculi to the QwispMap® and design and build an interface. This will involve educators as well as IT specialists to maximise the reach of Qwisp® through the internet and mobile applications.

To bring this to fruition we are actively seeking collaborators, funders and supporters who share our vision.