Drama lecturers scoop CHED award

United: Associate Professor Gay Morris and Liz van Breda's collaborative project has won them a CHED award.

Associate Professor Gay Morris and Liz van Breda were among the first winners of the inaugural Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED)'s Award for Collaborative Educational Practice. Three awards were made and Morris and Van Breda's award was the sole winner in the Humanities faculty.

The CHED Award was launched late last year to recognise groups who have exploited the synergies arising out of collaboration to innovate or address challenges in the teaching and learning environment. The project had to be an example of good practice.

Morris and Van Breda's project is part of Learning through Drama and Theatre, a second-semester BA course in the Department of Drama. In groups of between four and six, students devise theatre-in-education programmes to be performed in schools and so, each year, approximately 3000 school learners are exposed '“ perhaps for the only time '“ to a theatre experience. The drama students also get a taste of the power of theatre in schooling.

The duo's project was found to be "an excellent example of collaborative practice", winning them R40 000 that may be used in any way they feel will advance their efforts.