Context
Since 1943, the British Council and Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education have been working together to improve access to quality education across the country.
In 2018, workshops took place with the General Education sector to consider the ways in which the targets on learning outcomes could be achieved. From these discussions, nine key strategies were determined, with two priorities – building the capacity of teachers using coaching and improving instructional leadership at schools. In both of these areas, Cluster Supervisors played a key role in coaching teachers as well as school principals. This project was thus designed to build the capacity of the Cluster Supervisors so that they were equipped to coach teachers and school principals.
Implementation
BCCEPS began with a two-week needs analysis of Cluster School Supervisors, based on which training courses were designed and delivered for two sets of 220 participants over a one-month period from all eleven regions of the country, by a team of eleven Professional Coaches from TELT. This was followed by a one-week course to train monitors to oversee and support the implementation by participants of their action plans.
The BCCEPS course, initially conceived to train only the supervisors, was redesigned based on the needs analysis, for trios of participants from 150 schools composed of a supervisor, the principal and a teacher associated with the same primary school. Trios worked as a team of coaches and operated as development cells within their schools leading to:
- the development of model clusters of schools within model woredas
- improved dialogue between all stakeholders on teacher development issues
The project took place across three phases:
- A needs analysis visit by the TELT consultants to different regions and primary schools in Ethiopia to assess the effectiveness of the current training systems and coaching/mentoring skills of the cluster supervisors.
- Face-to-face ‘trainer training’ of the master coaches and monitors led by 11 professional TELT coaches held in a training venue in Bishoftu (Debre Zeit), a central location 38 kilometres from the capital Addis Ababa.
- Remote support in the form of supervision and guidance to the master coaches as they delivered cascade training to their colleagues and ultimately to teachers and school leaders.
Impact
The idea of creating teacher development cells within Ethiopian schools is a pragmatic, flexible and more sustainable option, which has the potential not only to build local teaching capacity, but also foster a better dialogue between all stakeholders (REBs, the MDU, RDUs, Woreda Administrations, school leaders and teachers) in the pursuit of a new and reinvigorated educational culture.