Excel-erate: Teacher Training in Afghanistan

In March 2008, Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, approved $500,000 for a CW4WAfghan two year teacher training project in Afghanistan. This project is managed in collaboration with our Kabul Office and an implementing Afghan partner organization. The project will train hundreds of teachers in villages near Kabul. As part of this project, CW4WAfghan has committed $150,000 of the Breaking Bread fundraising donations towards the training programme.

CIDA's Voluntary Sector Fund with the Canadian Partnership Branch matches our donor contributions on a 3:1 basis through our successful application for this project. In addition, funds raised for teachers' salaries by Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan (http://www.littlewomenforlittlewomen.ca), under the Breaking Bread fundraising initiative will be generously matched dollar-for-dollar by CIDA as a result of the challenge made by Minister Oda on International Women's Day, March 8, 2008 (see our NEWSLETTER for Mar/Apr 2008 for full details). This will enable even more female teachers to benefit from the salary and education resources.

Goals:

• To provide higher quality education in Afghanistan, particularly for women and girls; and,
• To engage Canadians in advancing education for women and girls world wide, as a basic human right.

In summary, Excel-erate is a two-year programme funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan) to provide high quality teacher training in several under-resourced districts of northern Kabul province, Afghanistan.

Schools in these districts suffer from a chronic shortage of trained teachers, textbooks, school supplies, school libraries, and laboratory material. These areas have experienced an influx of returned refugees and migrants and lack the infrastructure to meet the educational needs of pupils, particularly girls.

The Excel-erate teacher training programme benefits the quality of instruction received by girls and boys, supports teachers' knowledge development and teaching abilities, provides educational resources to the participating schools, and builds on the training capacities of our partner's teacher trainers. At least 350 student teachers will participate in several rounds of a two-part teacher-training session during 2008 and 2009, which impart skills in both pedagogy and methodology as well as subject area knowledge such as math, science or social studies. Eight certified trainers will design and conduct a comprehensive, needs-specific training programme with support from an experienced teacher training expert and our project management team.

This programme will also establish a virtual Teachers' Resource Centre to give the trained teachers access to quality teacher education resources in their own languages for their on-going professional development.

Teachers and schools will also be assisted with making improvements to their classrooms, accessing materials, and where possible, to accessing approved textbooks from the Ministry of Education. These additional resources will ensure the newly learned skills acquired by the student trainees are immediately implemented and practiced within the classroom setting.

Purpose of the Project

• To build the knowledge and capacity of teachers at the primary and secondary level in specific under-resourced Districts of Afghanistan;
• To provide Afghan students in community and home-based schools with access to higher-quality education;
• To improve the quality, access and relevance of education for Afghan women and girls to empower Canadians, as global citizens, through awareness raising and activities relating to international development.

Our Partner in Excel-erate

Afghan Women's Resource Centre

AWRC was founded in 1989 by a group of Afghan refugee women in Peshawar, Pakistan to address the immediate needs and interests of Afghan refugee women.  AWRC's vision is of a future where Afghan women are active agents of positive change in their community and country. AWRC serves women and children in the provinces of Kabul, Parwan, Kapisa, Laghman and Ningarhar in Afghanistan, and in Peshawar, Pakistan. AWRC focuses on women's empowerment for gender equity and on the protection of children. Currently, their main programmes include: Community Mobilization & Advocacy, Education, Community Empowerment, Supporting Civil Society Organizations.

RESOURCES:
A virtual teachers' resource library is under development for Afghan teachers. Check back for further details in early 2010.

Click HERE to download a copy of the baseline study on girls' education in Afghanistan created by Sanja Golic in 2007 to support the work of this CW4WAfghan CIDA-funded project.