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Para-professional
teachers have appealed to department of Education to organize more workshops
for unqualified teachers to improve their teaching skills to guarantee
quality education. Interviewed teachers at a three-day Para-professional
teachers workshop held at Education office since Monday 16 September 2002,
teachers said the workshop is important as they acquire skills, which will
assist them to deal with all groups of children including slow learners and
the disabled.
Teachers said lesson planning was their main problem, which prohibited them
from covering and finishing the syllabus easily as they were teaching
without plan, adding that they could not easily evaluate their teaching
methods. Teachers further said they are now in the position to identify
children's problems that lead to poor performance in classes and such
problems include family problems, adding they can also approach children in
a way children can be free to tell their problems.
One of the resource persons who is also the area resource teacher for
Tsatsane said the workshop covered among other topics: lesson planning,
class room management, teaching techniques, professional ethics, catering
for individual influences and teaching evaluation. She said the workshop has
been organized after area resource teachers identified that para-professional
teachers lack teaching skills.
Participants at the workshop are from 72 primary schools in the district,
this is the second workshop of its kind to be held for unqualified teachers.
A similar workshop was held in September last year. Unqualified teachers
were formerly trained by National College of Education and the training is
held at the districts level to promote decentralization.
17
September,2002
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