This year, the Jofi School increased the number of teachers, because, if anyone was absent, they didn’t have a teacher to cover the class. Jofi School’s had four new teachers join them this year, all fresh out of college with open minds and a keen attitude.
Jofi School trains all their teachers in-house helping them to use modern teaching methods rather than the chalk and board system which is widely used in The Gambia.
Education starts with the basics. Teaching children to think for themselves, learning to work things out for themselves. If a child cannot understand how to solve problems, they cannot be expected to learn. This year, the Head of Teacher Training, Gilly Baker, has been training the nursery teachers in the use of “Schema” which encourages learning through play.
Reading skills are the basis of a child’s education, if they can’t read, they can’t do any other subject, so the primary teachers are now being trained to use workbooks to assess the children before they’re allowed to go to the next level. Gilly’s ongoing training courses and efforts have seen amazing results, teachers teach with confidence, children are interested, keen to learn and the standard of education improves every day.
