Tamale, July 31, GNA - Out of a teacher population of 4,540 in the Tamale Metropolitan Directorate of Education, 1,841 are pupil teachers who mostly teach at the Kindergarten level. Mr. Edward Gayoni, the Metropolitan Director of Education who said this at a two-day training workshop for Kindergarten teachers in the Metropolis said: "Because a good number of these teachers are untrained, they lack the basic pedagogical skills to handle young innocent minds". The workshop, which was funded by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), seeks to equip the teachers with the basic skills to be able to handle their lessons well and also improve upon the performance of their pupils.

Mr. Gayoni said the best solution to addressing the shortcomings of the pupil teachers is in-service training and workshops to build their competencies and confidence.

He said it was sad to note that because of their shortcomings some of the Kindergarten teachers resort to unprofessional methods of beating and insulting pupils who do not understand their lessons.

He spoke about the importance of quality education at the basic level and said over 90 percent of people who became successful in the field of education had a good foundation at the basic level.

Mr. Gayoni said although some lapses occurred on the part of kindergarten teachers because of the lack of training all their failures could not be accepted when compared with their colleagues in the private schools some of whom are junior and senior high school graduates. He urged the teachers to live up to expectation and said his administration would not hesitate to discipline non-performing teachers. 31 July 09