According to Deputy Chief Education Officer (Ag) Ingrid Trotman, in September this year the Ministry of Education (MoE) will be procuring 1500 nursery school kits for coastland teachers to aid with the delivery of the Nursery school programme.
A release from the Ministry of Education yesterday said that the kits will cost $142M. One kit comprises 25 to 30 items including counting blocks, a doctor set and a baker’s set. The kit also contains packages with different kinds of animals.
The kits are currently being used, in a pilot project started in 2014, by teachers in four hinterland regions, 1,7, 8, and 9.
Prior to 2014, the release said that teachers were concerned that they were spending most of their time preparing learning materials for their lessons. According to Trotman “instead of spending time preparing materials we (MoE) provide them (teachers) with material so that they can spend time fine-tuning the different strategies and methods in teaching the children”.
Trotman said that since the project was piloted in 2014, the MoE has seen the literacy rates improve in the schools where the kits are being used. She said it is for this reason that the initiative will be rolled out to all schools across the country.
Trotman said the pilot project also provided vital information since the MoE found some materials were underutilized.
According to Trotman, the materials are multi-dimensional, they can be used for literacy, numeracy and for other aspects of learning and teaching as well. The release said that at present, the education system has 1,918 nursery school teachers, 332 nursery schools,15 annexes and 161 nursery classes.
