September 6, 2021
By: Dadson A. Musa
In their bid to continue the implementation of a one –year World Bank project, Street Child-SL has trained ten selected schools each in Bo and Bonthe districts. The training took place in Bo at the regional office and the facilitators were Dr. William Conteh and Mr. Martin of Teach for Sierra Leone, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).
Giving an overview of the training, Hawa Shour, the Programme Coordinator of Street Child-SL in the Bo office told this medium that the training is taking place in the northern province of Sierra Leone as well, and it is part of a wide range of activities undertaken by Street Child in partnership with seven other NGOs funded by World Bank.
The training manual was designed by Teach for Sierra Leone and had very rich and up-to-date school management lessons. It aims to “keep children in school amidst covid-19 and to also ensure an efficient and effective school management system,” said Shour.
They will take it up with monitoring of beneficiary schools by Street Child-SL staff to make sure there are no lapses in its implementation. And this monitoring will take place twice every month to make sure what they were taught is implemented.
It is a one year project and Street Child- SL has implemented 50% of the other components of grant giving to parents of vulnerable children, supply of school materials to vulnerable groups. This training is in line with government policy on education and international best practice.
It is also geared towards creating a platform where slow learners are catered for so they can catch up with fast and exceptional learners in their respective schools. Teaching at the right level is key in this as it aims to bring on board every learner in the classroom. The work is done in consonant with the community as chiefs, parents and role models are brought in the process. The project is done with the supervision of Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education. Even after this project implementation phase schools are encouraged to continue with lessons learned in the project.
Another aspect of the training was focused on heads of schools. It aimed to train them on coaching and mentoring in the school administration system. The professional development of the teachers by heads is crucial to the running of schools. It also aims to develop the teacher personally as a role model in the community. That the good works of the teachers must be celebrated and then their attention should be drawn without reserve to areas that they need to improve on later. Honesty should form the hallmark of a good teacher. And teachers should go through the four stages of trained and qualified, distinguished teacher, accomplished teacher and efficient teacher.