Jumpstart! Update – ECD Training Closing Ceremony
March 2, 2015It’
s official, ten of our Jumpstart! nursery teachers have now completed their ECD training week!
On Friday 27th February, we were thrilled to join the teachers at the closing ceremony of the course. The teaching college’s resident principal, tutors, as well as AR staff (including our CEO Colleen Yuen) were all on hand to congratulate the group on their well-deserved achievement, and offer words of encouragement as the teachers return to their respective nursery classrooms across the Nwoya district.
The resident-principal, in his rousing speech, assured the teachers that the Ugandan government now recognizes ECD as the first formal stage of education, and so their new certificates in ECD will be well-respected. Indeed, during the past week, the teachers studied five modules which exposed them to ECD policy; principles, aims, and benefits of ECD within the context of Uganda. Practically, the group learnt about learning frameworks, lesson planning, and creative material production schemes.
As a result of undertaking this comprehensive training, Richard Ayella, our Education Programme Co-coordinator, encouraged the teachers:
“My hope and my expectation is that you won’t leave this teaching college the same; I have no doubt that you have transformed as teachers. Let me assure you that you will conclude this academic year as excellent teachers; you will be the standard that the community and parents will expect to see everywhere”.
However, teachers will not be alone in their efforts to improve their nursery classrooms. In our Jumpstart! partner schools, our field workers, Maxwell and Monica, are on hand to offer support and help to all our caregivers as they strive to provide the best learning environment possible for their young students.
As the ceremony drew to a close, we were delighted to hear from one of the teachers, Sunday, who passionately addressed his fellow teachers:
“People think it is useless to be a nursery teacher if you are male, but I have found that it is the perfect fit for my skills. I have done lots of different teacher training, but I have learnt many new things here.”
“The certificate which we have gained is not important in itself, the most important thing is the knowledge we have gained. Teachers, put your training actively into practice. This training has greatly improved our skills, and now, the knowledge we have acquired, let’s show it to other teachers so that they too can learn. Let’s demonstrate our lesson planning skills, and the way we feed and care for our pupils to other teachers”.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves! Once again, we extend our hearty congratulations to the teachers, and we look forward to visiting them in their classrooms soon as we work together to transform nurseries across Northern Uganda.
