Some 400 Junior High School teachers in the Obuasi enclave have received specialised training meant to equip them to employ modern ways to effectively execute the new curriculum of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

The initiative by mining giant, AngloGold Ashanti Ghana, Obuasi Mine, forms part of the mine’s socio-economic management plan, that has education as an economic empowerment tool.

As part of its implementation, the mine together with both the Obuasi East District and the Obuasi Municipal Assembly held a four-day workshop for teachers in the enclave.

The training programme was designed to equip teachers with the differentiated learning approaches that will help them deliver on the new curriculum and help improve the Basic Education Certificate Examination (B.E.C.E) performance in the area.

The current pass rate of Basic Education Certificate Examination (B.E.C.E) in the Obuasi enclave is 90%.

The Social Development and Gender superintendent, Anglogold Ashanti, Mavis Nana Yaa Kyei, was positive of a 100% pass rate in basic educational institutions within the operational area by the end of the implementation of the plan.

"The four-day workshop is to introduce teachers in Obuasi to the different learning approaches that will help them to be able to deliver on the new curriculum of the Ghana Education Service (G.E.S).

“We're doing this to improve the pass rate in Obuasi. We believe that once the teachers are able to adopt new skills in teaching, students will pass the BECE examination easily. I'm happy that all 400 teachers participated in the program,” she said.

Headmasters from various schools were also trained on best managerial practices.

The Obuasi East District Director of Education, Kwabena Owusu Nketia, said the workshop will help teachers to be fully abreast with the new curriculum.

"Nobody can underrate the importance of training and retraining. So, the workshop and refresher courses in the education sector is very important to us.

"We need to abreast ourselves with the modern trend in our sector, therefore AGA sponsoring this workshop for teachers is laudable," he said.

He also underscored the benefit of refresher courses for teachers that exposes them to modern trends in education.

Meanwhile, Rigworld, a sub-contractor of AngloGold Ashanti donated ten (10) laptops to the Ghana Education Service (G.E.S) in the municipality to improve education in the gold mining community.

AngloGold education support drive

AngloGold Ashanti through a 3-year Social Management Plan, had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with both the Obuasi Municipal and Obuasi East District Directorates of Education.

This was to implement a 3-year Basic Education Improvement Project with the aim of increasing the BECE pass rate from 86.6 per cent in 2018 to 90 per cent by 2021.

Under the MoU, the Mine, through collaboration with the Obuasi Municipal and Obuasi East Directorates of Education, over the period, has implemented interventions to improve education access, teachers’ delivery and school supervision.

Madam Kyei revealed that the highly successful three (3) year Socio-economic Management Plan has birthed a ten (10) year Socio-economic Management Plan which has education highly featured.

She mentioned that there are three (3) pillars in the plan and key to the plan is education.

"In education, we seek to bridge infrastructural gap especially at the basic school level, donate teaching and learning materials to schools, continent with infrastructural capacity workshop, promote STEM and support ICT education ", she added.