With the Education Program’s expansion into Mabera this year, and further expansion in the future, we determined that our Training Manager George Nyamweya could not be in the two different places at the same time. George had been doing a great job of delivering trainings to the team during school break times and office days, but next year the Mabera team will move into a small office in their division, and they needed someone to lead these trainings.
In April of 2013, we developed the concept of a “Training Team”, where each division would be led by a Training Coordinator, and George would manage them both. Nearly six months in to our training team experiment, the Training Team is really starting to find their stride. Ambrose Maroa and Ginono Joseph were chosen as Training Coordinators for Mabera and Isebania Divisions respectively. Ambrose had served as Field Manager for Mabera Division and previously had undertaken studies in England and worked in Cameroon and Tanzania in addition to Kenya. Ginono had also served as a Field Manager for Isebania Division and has a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature. Both stood out as the right candidates for Training Coordinators amongst our current staff members.
One of the main tasks of the Training Team is to evaluate our facilitators on their teaching techniques in the classrooms on a weekly basis and give constructive feedback. Ambrose and Ginono have observed all of our facilitators and our teaching skills as a team are improving. One tool that has really helped us, is what we call the Classroom Observation Measure. This is a measure that is adapted from a USAID study in Ghana. The Training Team was trained on how to use the tool and look for different examples of good teaching techniques in the categories of learner interaction, learner engagement, thinking skills, classroom setup, gender sensitivity and more. This tool has really helped the Training Team, and our team as a whole, identify areas where we are weak and then deliver trainings in those areas to strengthen our team.
The Training Team is also responsible for delivering trainings that will help develop our team as teachers in the classroom. George has done a great job of taking Ambrose and Ginono under his wing and teaching them how to deliver effective trainings. Each has had several opportunities to deliver trainings to the team and they are getting better each day. They work together on developing Powerpoints and fun activities to keep the facilitators engaged in the learning process. We encourage trainings to be interactive, so that we mimic how we want to teach the students in our everyday lessons.
The Training Team is continuing to work hard at giving feedback, observing facilitators, and delivering trainings. They also just recently attended the Nairobi International Book Fair where they made many contacts in hopes of getting quality reading materials for our lessons. They are really growing well together and will be an integral part of making our program sustainable in the future.