US funding supports professional development of Georgian teachers

Students from a school in Georgia's western, remote Svaneti region. Photo by N. Alavidze/Agenda.ge
Agenda.ge, 03 Feb 2016 - 12:39, Tbilisi,Georgia

About 20,000 teachers and all school principals in Georgia will soon be able to better manage educational process using funds from the United States (US) government.

The US government will invest $14 million USD (about 35 million GEL) to train and support professional development of public school teachers across Georgia.

The professional training initiative will involve all public school principals and 20 000 science, math, informational technologies and English teachers of Grades 7-12. Additionally, 2,000 facilitators will be prepared to offer their assistance to other teachers in each public school across the country.

The aim of the project was to ensure sustainable professional development of Georgian teachers, which will contribute to better educational processes at the country’s public schools.

The project was launched in January 2016 and will last until the summer of 2019. It was administrated by Georgia’s National Centre for Teacher Professional Development and the Millennium Challenge Account-Georgia (MCA – Georgia).

The teacher training project was a component of the US foreign aid agency Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) $140 million (about 335 million GEL) second compact for Georgia.

The MCC, established in 2004, has approved over $10 billion in Compact and threshold programs worldwide that support country-determined projects in a range of sectors including agriculture and irrigation, healthcare, water supply and irrigation, finance and enterprise development, anti-corruption initiatives and access to education.