School-to-School International is excited to join the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) at Florida State University for a five-year, $15.6 million project sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to improve teacher training in Malawi.
Over the five-year period, the Strengthening Teacher Education and Practice (STEP) Activity will work hand-in-hand with higher education institutions to improve instruction for pre-service teachers and support a continuous professional development framework for in-service teachers. The resulting activities will support teachers throughout their careers.
“We will be impacting every single teacher that teaches primary school in all of Malawi, which means that we will impact every child,” said Adrienne Barnes-Story, project director and LSI research faculty member.
“It’s just mind-blowing that we’re going to have the opportunity to impact the entire primary education system while strengthening the higher education network of institutions necessary to carry this work forward.”
School-to-School International will provide technical expertise in teacher education, early grade reading instruction, education research, and monitoring and evaluation. It will also lead the project’s operational and financial aspects in Malawi.
“We are excited to join Florida State in this unique opportunity to deeply impact teacher education in Malawi. It builds on so much of the work we are already supporting in Malawi,” shared Candace Debnam, School-to-School International’s executive director.
FSU and STS currently collaborate on the USAID/Malawi National Reading Program Implementation and Expansion (NRPIE) Activity. FSU leads curriculum review and revision activities for Standards 5-8 in Chichewa and English. These activities are in partnership with the MoE (UPREAD Activity). STS assists the MoE in developing appropriate reading and listening benchmarks and setting targets for reading achievement for Chichewa and English across the early grades of primary school. The two groups have also partnered to implement the USAID Transforming Teacher Education project in Zambia which aims to give more than 70 teacher educators the skills to deliver effective instruction to 9,000 college and university students studying to become primary grade teachers.
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