UMass Amherst School of Education Hosts Afghanistan Educators on Teacher Training Study Tour

Oct. 22, 2007

Contact:

Joseph Berger 413/545-2231

AMHERST, Mass. – Twenty top educators from across Afghanistan are visiting the United States on a four-week tour that will help them to train teachers in their war-torn country. Based at UMass Amherst, the study tour is providing Afghan educators with the opportunity to learn new approaches to successful teacher training, including undergraduate, graduate and alternative program models.

The study tour is being hosted by the Center for International Education (CIE) in the School of Education at UMass Amherst in collaboration with the Institute for Training and Development of Amherst. The visiting group includes Afghan education professors, many of whom are deans and department heads at their respective institutions, and officials from the Ministry of Higher Education in Kabul, along with two interpreters. The group arrived on Sept. 29 and will depart on Saturday, Oct. 27. This program and all of the Afghan participants’ expenses are funded by the $7.8 million Afghanistan Higher Education Project at UMass Amherst, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development.

Because the participants come from a resource-poor environment, they hope to gain not only theoretical knowledge, but also practical experience designing and implementing teacher training programs. Areas of particular interest include curriculum design, teaching methodologies, administration systems, supervision and teacher mentoring. Following the study tour, the participants will return to their home institutions to work with colleagues on improving the training of secondary school teachers in Afghanistan.

The Afghan educators will participate in workshops and will visit organizations and institutions throughout the state including UMass Amherst, Westfield State College, Fitchburg State College and secondary schools throughout the region. The training program will combine informational and background sessions in the classroom with site visits, meetings, small group work, action planning and hands-on skill-building workshops.

“The teams are charged with developing a vision, a plan and an implementation strategy to develop the capacity of their education faculties to do a better job in preparing secondary teachers,” said David Evans of CIE.

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