O BARIMA AKONTOH

My hard skill sets include, first and foremost communication skills, as a first language speaker of English and holding a degree in Language, Literacy and Communication, I have always enjoyed the English Language and English Literature from Shakespeare to Jane Austen. I have found very interesting, the poetry of the past, dealing with various themes such as love, life and choice. My interest in psychology was piqued from trying to better understand development in individuals and therefore, I decided to branch off into Educational Psychology for my Honours in order to widen the scope of my skill set. By obtaining this degree, I learnt the skills of counseling and applying learning and development theories which in turn developed my problem solving skills.

I decided to take Information and Communication Technology for specialisation in the Masters programme because I sought to advance my communication skill set with technology. It is clear that technology will continue to have a grater impact in all major facets of society in the years and decades to come so I saw it as meaningful to further widen my skill-set by completing the Masters programme in ICT. I believe that having this interdisciplinary approach provides me with a major advantage than if I just stayed in a particular focus area after my initial degree.

For soft skills, I am a subscriber to thought leadership principles and hold the firm belief that every problem has a solution and while things may seem melancholy at times, one must have a positive attitude in order to affect circumstances positively. I also believe in teamwork and embracing cultural diversity, I finally had the opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom in 2015 in order to visit family members and it was easy to see the advantages that come from how different cultures can come together in order to improve society.

One of my cherished skills in this regard is adaptability, I obtained this early in my Academic profession since my student teacher year back in 2008/2009, I have taught in different educational settings from rural schools to Learners with Special Educational Needs and Higher Learning Institutions both in the public and private sectors. I firmly believe that one has to be able to adapt, so for example the lack of resources in a rural school requires one to change how they will put forth their lesson with enough text books, whereas in the LSEN setting one has a stronger focus on being sensitive towards individual learner needs, both social and psychological.