Mogambal Moonsamy received an award for her lifetime contribution to STEM
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KwaZulu-Natal teacher Mogambal Moonsamy has received international recognition for her unwavering commitment to fostering interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Moonsamy received the lifetime contribution in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) award at the 28th World School Summit in Thailand.
The award acknowledges her dedication and significant impact on STEM education throughout her career.
The World School Summit unites school leaders from around the globe to learn from international education experts and shape the future of learning.
Moonsamy is a mathematics specialist and head of department at Iziphozethu Primary School in KwaDukuza, on the north coast.
"I enjoy being hands-on and understanding my learners' home circumstances. My purpose is to assist the child, and now that I have grown so much, I enjoy sharing what I know with other teachers,” said Moonsamy.
At the World School Summit, Moonsamy presented the challenges in South African schools with teacher and learner ratios and the backlog in access to technology. She also shared stories of hope with how tangible coding is, changing the coding and robotics curriculum in her district, and in South Africa.
Moonsamy, who has been in the teaching profession for 29 years, started with Tangible Africa four years ago with 165 learners participating in the Mandela Day tournament.
Tangible, a project of the Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences Department and the Leva Foundation non-profit organisation, introduces children to coding concepts via games that are simple to understand and entertaining to play.
The #Coding4Mandela event took place across South Africa, as well as the rest of Africa, in July. Winning teams from each tournament will compete in a national virtual competition on Thursday, and stand the chance to represent South Africa in the annual virtual World Championship on September 30.
"Learners from my district, which is iLembe, won 20 out of 45 in the provincial round. This week I have four teams of five competing virtually at the national level," she said.
Moonsamy said from first starting with 165 learners in her district she has since had 85 schools and hundreds of learners, making it one of the biggest districts and provinces participating in the tournament.
"I am proud to say that every school in the iLembe district has a coding kit. Our district is large and spread out into the deep rural areas, and many are no-fee schools,” said Moonsamy.
During Tangible Africa’s #Coding4Mandela event this year over 7500 learners from her district participated in the different related activities.
Moonsamy was involved in the unplugged coding workshops to train the teachers of the 85 schools in her district.
“Most of the learners, especially the girls, started to choose maths, physical science and IT as high school subjects. It boosts their confidence and morale to know that they are good at something. We need to move away from chalk and talk, by using devices in our classrooms since children are becoming more technologically advanced,” said Moonsamy.
Moonsamy is her district coordinator for both the robotics and coding, as well as the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists.
She was recently honoured by Chief Albert Luthuli’s family at the Tangible Africa Coding event, hosted at the Luthuli Museum in Groutville for her contribution to bringing STEM activities to the museum and serving hundreds of learners and teachers in the region.
She said she would like to get more girls involved in STEM.
"We need to enforce STEM in rural schools. I want people's interest in STEM to grow to be able to prepare learners for artificial intelligence," she said.
Moonsamy said her aim is to leave a legacy of knowledge.