Obuasi (Ash)-Ghana, July 10, GNA – AngloGold Ashanti, Obuasi Mine in collaboration with Obuasi East District and the Obuasi Municipal Education Directorates, is organising an in-service training for over 500 early grade teachers on reading skills and phonics.
Over 250 teachers from Kindergarten and Basic levels (KG1, KG2, BS1, BS2 and BS3) respectively in the Obuasi Municipality took part in the first cohort.
The KG teachers received training in jolly phonics while the lower primary teachers received training in transition from Ghanaian Language of instruction (in teaching) to English Language.
In a recent press briefing by the Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, he disclosed that, as of 2022, about 38 per cent of students in primary two across the country could read, implying that 62 percent of these pupils were unable to read.
This has been a major concern for stakeholders in the education sector considering the importance attached to education at the foundation stage.
Mr George Alfred Koomson the Obuasi Municipal Director of Education said the workshop was aimed at equipping the teachers with the needed skills to improve reading in schools.
He said the goal was to find a lasting solution to the learners’ inability to read and comprehend texts during lessons.
Mr Koomson said AngloGold Ashanti had over the years supported the two Education Directorates in organising workshops for teachers, but the focus had always been on Junior High School teachers preparing students for Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
He said after analysing the BECE results over the period, the Directorates realised that though the results were good, there was a challenge regarding the ability of children to read and comprehend.
“This informed our decision to focus on teachers at the foundation level,” he pointed out.
The Education Director was optimistic that the workshop would help the teachers to build on their already acquired skills to enable them to discharge their duties effectively.
The participants were taken through what phonics means and looked at some of the phonics skills such as decoding, encoding and blending sounds of words together as well as how to make children read fluently in English.
The initiative to train teachers in Obuasi forms part of AngloGold Ashanti’s 10- year Socio-Economic Development Plan geared towards improving educational standards in the mine’s operational area.
Madam Gifty Prempeh of Obuasi Presby KG said they had acquired new methods of teaching using sounds rather than focusing on alphabets.
“This will make teaching and learning more interesting,” she said.
She commended AngloGold Ashanti for sponsoring the training programme, saying that it had also enhanced peer review among teachers because teachers were able to interact more with one another and learn from each other.
