Chimbu teachers ask for courses on phonics

National

By MALINDA KALE
THREE-hundred-and-twenty primary school teachers in Kundiawa-Gembogl, Chimbu, have requested for more trainings on phonics after concluding the week’s provincial in-service last Friday.
Provincial phonics facilitator Caroline Bomai said phonics had been included in the Standards-Based Curriculum that would be taught in schools, and most teachers did not know much about it and had asked the district school inspector to conduct more training.
Bomai said the curriculum had four topics that teachers were going to cover which the training covered except for phonics.
She said the schools in the district were divided into four clusters and phonics was allocated an hour which was inadequate.
“The teachers in the four groups that I talked to said they want more phonics training in order to properly implement that curriculum,” she said.
“Phonics is a big part of the new standard-based curriculum and if teachers are to teach phonics in the primary schools than they needed more training.”
Bomai said she had only gone over the basics of phonics but realised from the feedback that it was a topic that needed further sessions.
She said the district inspector was aware of the need and was planning to schedule a date and location to carry out additional training on phonics.
Teachers and schools from all levels of education in Chimbu – vocational schools, secondary and high schools and primary schools – contributed to fund the in-service with schools paying K200 each and teachers K20 each.
The vocational, secondary and high schools had their in-service on the first week of the term holiday and primary schools on the second week.