By Frederick Philander
WINDHOEK
A three-day compensatory teaching workshop by the Khomas Region Education headquarters for hundreds of primary school teachers ended yesterday at three venues in the capital.
New Era visited the Emma Hoogenhout Primary School where Ursula Damens, principal at Elim Primary School was facilitating one such workshop.
“The primary function of a primary school is to prepare learners for secondary education. The foundation for this is laid in the lower primary phase. All learners do not progress at the same pace and therefore extra support for such learners is an absolute necessity. A compensatory teaching programme can provide this extra support,” said the Khomas regional education director, Claudia Tjikuua in a foreword to the training manual of the workshop.
The workshop had been designed to assist primary school teachers to understand the concept of teaching through differentiation.
“It is the main function of a lower primary teacher to teach learners the basic skills of reading with understanding and basic writing skills. For four years these basic competencies should be developed by the teacher in the classroom because extra help at home is usually not available. This course will empower teachers to assist learners with possible learning problems,” she concluded.