HWF Project Update

Mobile Education Partnerships has been working with Help Without Frontiers as their teacher training implementation partner for five years. With the focus of the training changing each year, the training provided has gradually brought all teachers supported by Help Without Frontiers to the same skill level.  This year’s training has extended the focus to training mentor teachers within schools, with the intention of providing schools with a sustainable model of development.

Nwet Nwet Win, Mobile Education Partnerships trainer for this project, provided a 5-day mentor-training workshop in May for 18 senior teachers who had been identified as Mentors within their schools; this workshop focused on key skills for becoming a mentor. Following this, the mentors were invited to join Nwet Nwet Win to provide workshops each week for new teachers on basic classroom practice. Nwet Nwet Win visits each mentor at their school, working alongside them and supporting them to develop their mentoring skills. She guides and advises them in their roles as mentors and supports them to develop their soft skills, their observation and listening skills and their ability to give constructive feedback and offer appropriate advice to other teachers. The approach of using regular follow-up visits allows the trainer to build a strong relationship with the mentor and gain their trust, as well as allowing her to observe the mentor at work.

With the project just over half way through, there is evidence of significant improvement in all teachers’ mentoring skills. The greatest improvement has been shown in the area of Professional Collaboration with more than half the mentors achieving each of the competencies and every mentor now giving regular ‘next time targets’. The most challenging area of development is proving to be the accurate identification of individual teacher’s needs and offering appropriate support.

This approach provides a more long-term sustainable method of training, and it is hoped that the mentors will be able to take some of the responsibilities for supporting new teachers in their school.