Social Responsibility and Community Engagement with Education Bridge – Africa & Oasis MathareUniversity of Nairobi

University of Nairobi, Education Bridge – Africa and Oasis Mathare has been implementing a program dubbed Teacher Education Done Differently: Strengthening Untrained and Underprivileged Teachers in the Informal Settlements and Offering Reading Supplementary to the Underprivileged Children. Teacher Education Done Differently (TEDD) is an action research model being implemented in the informal settlements of Nairobi. This program is a response to the issue wherein a majority of teachers in informal settlements are not trained and are unable to attend teacher training colleges due to their inability to afford most teacher education fees. Most of these untrained teachers are recruited from Form 4 graduates. We use a mentorship pedagogical approach to train on basic classroom teaching and learning management. This is done by undergraduate students (Mentors) from the University of Nairobi, College of Education and External Studies. The mentees are attached to a mentor for 12 weeks. The Master Trainers (Lecturers) monitor the training closely and have a week to evaluate the mentees and understand and document the lessons learned.

The University and Education Bridge-Africa are innovatively looking for creative strategies to follow up to ensure continuity of best teaching practices. Testimonies from graduates of the TEDD mentorship program are very positive. For example, many teachers are now able to prepare schemes of work, lesson plans, and teaching notes. One headteacher said, “even those we recruited as trained are now consulting TEDD graduates”. To supplement and strengthen teaching, learning, and reading skills, Oasis Mathare has a community resource center, managed by community volunteers, in Mathare Informal Settlements which offers space for #ReadtoLead supplementary materials, curriculum-based materials, and storybooks. The community resource center holds different categories of learners and is organized efficiently due to high demand.

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