With funds from the Education Outcome Funds (EOF) a local Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), known as the National Youth Awareness Forum (NYAF) at Calaba Town in eastern Freetown, has concluded a two-week lng training of 499 teachers and head teachers in Moyamba, Pujehun and Bonthe Districts. 

The project is being implemented by NYAF in partnership with Kizazi, a global education non-profit making organisation whose focus is to bring international expertise across Africa.

Speaking to a cross section of journalists after the training, one of NYAF’s District Supervisors Samuel Sean Taylor, said the essence of the training of those teachers was to improve innovation of teaching. According to him, for those past years they realized that children found it difficult to comprehend well in the English Language and Mathematics, which was one of the reasons they were schooling those teachers to improve their instructions to children.

Mr. Taylor also asserted that apart from the training, they also intended to provide them with text book and lesson guards starting from this academic year. During the training, teachers and head teachers were encouraged to be polite while teaching, and at the same time they were taught modernized methods of teaching.

Madam Binta Jalloh, one of the Teacher Coaches from NYAF, said that the training primarily focused on Mathematics and English Language because the two subjects were the foundations of learning. In his statement the Programme Lead in West Africa from Kizazi, Mr. Ike, said every child should have in-depth knowledge on the aforementioned subjects. He noted that his organization and NYAF wanted to see improvements in reading and solving of Mathematics in their areas of operations, adding that the training would also improve teachers’ pedagogical competence in order to improve students’’ learning outcomes.

NYAF and Kizazi staff took their time to impact in theme new methods of teaching, as they noted that they were mandated by the Government of Sierra Leone to monitor their activities in order to complement Government’s strides to boost the quality of education.

They concluded by emphasizing the fact that much was expected from them to build strong cooperative relationship with delivery partners as well as share local knowledge over customs and standards in their respective schools.

In his remarks the District Coordinator for the Free Quality Education in Moyamba District, Jonathan Koba, said the training was in line with the Free Quality Education package that would help to equip teachers for improved learning outcomes.

“The Government through the Ministry of Education has introduced a learning passport App for pupils to support their assessments”, he disclosed and stressed that the App consisted past questions from 2010 to date.