Developing lifelong readers by better preparing teachers

Like many of its neighbours, Mozambique suffers from a teacher shortage. In an effort to not only increase the number of teachers but the quality of their teaching, the Better Education Through Teacher Training and Empowerment for Results program in Mozambique works to better prepare teachers through one-on-one literacy mentoring.

Through this initiative, student teachers learn to teach reading and writing to children from local primary schools while under the careful supervision of teacher trainers such as Elsa Goia.

Goia believes that the project has increased the capacity of educators to deliver student-centred, gender-sensitive primary teacher education. She says the mentoring initiative did not just improve the teaching practices of the student teachers she worked with; it introduced her to new teaching strategies, such as using images to illustrate stories and adopting a guided reading program in the classroom.