Katie ColesSince finishing the master’s course (MA(IDE)) in September 2013 I have started a six-month internship with the “Sabre Charitable Trust” in Ghana where I did my placement. I loved the country and the people so much that I decided to come and get a job here in Ghana.

My work for the charity is focused on a kindergarten teacher-training programme that is teaching over 100 trainee and fully qualified kindergarten teachers how to adopt a play and activity based approach to learning. We have a group of Ghanaians who we train up to lead the training for the teachers in the hope that they will eventually be able to run the programme themselves, with a little bit of monitoring. I am also managing two resource centres where the teachers come once a month to make teaching materials for their classrooms.

I also write a blog for them, the address is sabreteachertraining.tumblr.com

I have always had an interest in development issues but before starting the International Development and Education MA course my interest was not solely focused on education. The course opened my eyes to the importance of education as a way out of poverty for the developing world and so why it is so crucial for developing countries to get it right. As a result I now have a clear focus of what path I would like my working career to take, which is something I had no idea about at the beginning of the course. I feel very lucky and grateful to have discovered this over the course of the year, I am only sad that it went too quickly!

(the children starting to blend words)