Learning Environment – Foundation of Quality Education

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The Project Development Objective (PDO) supports three objectives of the National Strategy for Education Development (NSED): (i) ensuring equal access and participation in education and science at all levels for all throughout life; (ii) improving the quality and relevance of education and science at all levels; and (iii) strengthening effective governance of the education sector. The enhanced learning environment would strengthen the foundation of the education system that would help the system to facilitate good teaching practices and improve student learning outcomes. It would also ensure that general secondary education schools would be safe enough for teachers to teach and for students to learn by improving resilience to external shocks such as natural disasters and pandemics like COVID-19. While improving the teaching and learning environment and resilience of general secondary education schools, the project would also strengthen the foundation of the education system as a whole and create a synergy with efforts being made by other development partners. Hence, the proposed project is expected to play a catalytic role in maximizing all donor efforts in the improvement of the education system in Tajikistan.The project suggests including the following three interlinked components:Component 1. Enhance National Framework of Teaching and Learning Environments for Better Teaching and Learning PracticesComponent 2. Improve the Quality and Resilience of Teaching and Learning EnvironmentsComponent 3. Build Capacity in Education Assessments and Project Management Component 1 aims to support the government to review the current national framework for teaching and learning environments and revise it to respond to urgent needs in the improvement of teaching and learning environments. It would also support the enhancement of school inspections to improve accountability of education quality at school and district levels. Component 2 would assist selected schools in (i) rehabilitation to meet minimum standards, (ii) modernization to accelerate the quality improvement of teaching and learning in collaboration with other donors, and (iii) expansion of the number of classrooms to reduce shifts and increase teaching/learning time. Component 3 would mainly support capacity development in the ministry of education. In particular, it puts a strong emphasis on the capacity of implementation of national learning assessments. This would help the ministry, in the long run, to periodically and independently conduct rigorous learning assessments from which the ministry can make evidence-based decisions and strategically allocate the limited resources to priority areas.