Georgia’s education system to benefit from $14 mln USAID programme to improve quality

The United States Agency for International Development and the Georgian Education Ministry have launched a $14 million US Government-funded programme to strengthen Georgia’s education sector and increase education quality and equality in schools, the Agency said on Thursday.

The institution said the five-year programme would be focused on strengthening the quality of pre-service teacher education programmes, build the capacity of school administrators as instructional leaders, and support implementation of school autonomy policies.

Photo from the Georgian Education Ministry's Facebook

In comments at an event for the programme in Tbilisi, Giorgi Amilakhvari, the Georgian Education Minister, highlighted the importance of projects implemented by the Ministry in partnership with the USAID.

One of the main directions of the Ministry is the general education reform - therefore, this project is important and responds to the reforms. […] This is an example of how we cooperate with the programme to ensure that we overcome the challenges existing in general education and improve access to quality education for our children, as well as to raise the qualification of teachers”, Amilakhvari noted.

Erin Elizabeth McKee, the Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia at the USAID, told the event the new educational partnership would help school principals and administrations to become “school leaders”, and pledged the Agency would continue its support for the goals.

New educational partnership between the USAID and Georgia will help school principals and administrators become school leaders, which is a key to academic staff's professional success", Mckee said.

The new programme will be implemented in partnership with Arizona State University, the University of Georgia and One World Network Schools.