Jean-Paul Kodjo Mlope Brings a New Skill SET to Support. Education. Togo.
Jean-Paul Kodjo Mlope wears many educational hats. Education professor, literacy specialist, school supervisor, and most recently, pedagogic mentor for primary school teachers in six SET schools.
“Hiring Jean-Paul in March, 2019 was a key step toward fulfilling Support. Education. Togo’s vision. Providing solid teacher support complements our efforts to build safe and permanent schools. Both give poor Togolese children opportunities to learn more and to learn better,” says SET President, Don Barclay.
Several factors influenced SET’s expanded vision of teaching the teachers through a pedagogical mentor like Jean-Paul.
In past literacy tests Togolese CP1 (grade one) pupils scored poorly. Aware of the difficulties of reaching their students, the SET teachers expressed a strong wish for fresh teaching ideas and for support in implementing those ideas.
Between 2019 and 2020 Jean-Paul is running a pilot project in six of 13 SET schools. Providing direct supervision of teachers in the classroom he will make individual suggestions based on his observations. Jean-Paul will run regular workshops with groups of teachers to help them learn from each other. Baseline testing of students done in 2018 will be compared with results in 2020.
“With the qualifications and experience Jean-Paul has we have very high hopes for positive change in student literacy. Improving teachers’ skill set this way has exponential benefits. Successive classes will benefit. New volunteer teachers and newly-hired teachers will benefit,” says Anne Carette, SET Director.
Anne adds, “I think of the saying I learned in Togo: ‘Water is life, but education is the future.’ With Jean-Paul’s skills the water makes larger and larger ripples into that future.”
