Bridging education inequity in Kenya through Teacher Training
Have you ever pondered, what kind of teacher every Kenyan child needs? or who is a great teacher? According to Teach For Kenya, a teacher is a leader, a friend, a mentor and someone who makes a difference beyond a child’s academic life. A teacher is also someone who builds meaningful relationships with his or her learners, fosters parental involvement and promotes transformational change in the community they serve.
With all the responsibilities that come with being a teacher in the 21st Century, we believe that a teacher is a catalyst and professional agent who is in charge of helping students learn and benefit from quality teaching. As an organization, we envision a classroom where children greatly benefit from dedicated, motivated and well- trained teachers.
In the past, teachers used to come into their careers as teachers with little formal professional training. Lack of Teacher Professional Training and Professional Development can be a key source for any dissatisfaction in the quality of teaching. In order to transform our education systems and give all children access to quality education we need to ensure that, we are substantially providing a platform where teachers can be trained and exposed to constant research, innovations that foster a collaborative culture and a positive school environment.
On June 14th 2021, Teach For Kenya officially launched a partnership with ProFuturo an EdTech programme promoted by Telefónica Foundation and ¨la Caixa¨ Foundation to narrow the education gap in Kenya. Through the programme, we are working towards improving the quality of education of close to 25,000 children by training 600 in-service teachers in 200 high need schools in Nairobi County. The training kicked off in July 20th 2021 which included improving the innovative digital teaching-learning experiences, enhancing the teachers’ pedagogical and digital skills, and providing meaningful student learning.
The Teach For Kenya — ProFuturo in-service teacher training programme is important because one of the driving forces behind change is transforming our schooling systems. We can achieve this is by ensuring that teachers are abreast with new technology, new teaching strategies and mindsets that will ignite the learners’ interest and encourage lifelong learning in high need communities.
We seek to ensure that the Competency based Curriculum is implemented and teachers can make the learning experiences more learner centered and skill based. In partnership with ProFuturo, we endeavor to provide an opportunity where teachers can learn, unlearn and relearn in order to create a pathway that ignites endless potential for every Kenyan child. Therefore, we look forward to cascade the impact of this programme across other regions in the country.
Meet the author
Clara Omol is the Communication and Marketing Lead at Teach for Kenya. She is passionate about Education and Humanitarian Storytelling.
