Education Quality & Relevance Project (APL #1)

closed

The Project Development Objective is to improve the quality and relevance of the Armenian school system to meet the challenges of the knowledge society. The key indicator will be that 70 percent of teachers are engaged in activities likely to develop the necessary knowledge and competencies in their students. The project has the following five components: Component 1) will provide a more relevant and inclusive general education curriculum and a system for evaluating system performance. Component 2) will help to ensure that schools in Armenia have facilities and capacity to integrate a variety of educational technologies as part of teaching and learning. It will: build the necessary infrastructure for integration of ICT into general education; and, help teachers and students to apply modern teaching and learning methods in schools using ICT and related instructional materials. Component 3) will enable teachers to understand and implement the new curriculum and assessment techniques in the classroom. It will: (i) train teachers in aligning their teaching to the requirements of the new national curriculum and assessment system; (ii) promote the use of active and skills-based teaching methods in schools; (iii) prepare teams of teacher trainers who will be able to serve as teacher development experts in the activities financed by this project and beyond; and (iv) pilot the idea of school-based professional development of teachers, and increase cooperation and experience-sharing among teachers and schools. Component 4) will help to improve the management and efficiency of the education system. The main costs of this component are to provide a package of benefits to the approximately 15,000 teachers who are made redundant as a result of rationalization. Benefits could include counseling, training, business services, and additional redundancy payments. Component 5) will provide the necessary assistance for project coordination, financial management, procurement, monitoring and reporting. It will support the investment and operating costs associated with the project management unit, Center for Education Projects (CEP).