Promoting Values Education in South Caucasus Higher Education Institutions

ongoing

The goal of the project is to enhance HEIs in Armenia and Georgia, by introducing Peace Education courses based on Values and Knowledge Education (VaKE). This will be achieved by creating new courses or modifying existing ones and making an impact on schools and communities. The project aims to support initiatives to promote peace in the region. VaKE is a constructivist, learner-centered teaching-learning concepts that permits to combine values education (in the sense of fostering the competence to argue in favor or against values preferences in specific situations) with knowledge acquisition (through inquiry-based learning). Addressing values in combination with knowledge dealing with societal issues such as peace, democracy and other major challenges is particularly important in this region that has experienced war and turmoil since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of which the countries were parts. Project team will develop courses for (a)pre-service teachers: (i)one common course of all HEIs on a topic of societal relevance and teaching methodology, (ii)each of the seven SC HEIs will develop one HEI-specific course on a similar topic (totally 5 courses), (b) Each of seven SC HEIs will develop HEI specific course for in-service teachers (totally 5 courses). All these activities will be supported by the two European partners and the international Association for VaKE (AVaKE) through training, counseling, supervision, and feedback; AVaKE will also guarantee sustainability beyond the end of the project. Finally, teachers and students from the different HEIs will meet in person in meetings and virtually in discussions in the common course. This is a contribution – as small as it might be – to peace in the region.