Photo Essay

Getting Ready for a New Strategy

UNICEF facilitates a training for educators to create a cadre of master trainers

Dalia Younis

UNICEF/Egypt 2020/Mohamed Ragaa

Available in:
English
العربية

25 February 2020

As part of the UK-funded “Integrated Education Services for Vulnerable and Marginalized Children in Egypt” project agreement, UNICEF continues to support the Egyptian government on the transformation process of the Egyptian education system to the new strategy ‘Education 2.0’.

The new strategy was introduced to some stages in the school-year 2018/2019 and will gradually replace the current system. By 2030 ‘Education 2.0’ will be the only operating national education system from pre-primary education up to secondary education.

UNICEF Egypt developed life skills-based extracurricular activities training kits for school children. The urgent need for this intervention stems from the fact that there are students, starting from Grade 4, who have not been targeted by “Education 2.0” yet. The extracurricular training packages address two key age groups: 9 to 12 and 13 to 15 years old.

Because the new strategy and training kits are skill-based and require more creative learning tools for, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Technical Education, qualified master trainers from the target governorates (North Sinai, South Sinai and Ismailia) were selected for an intensive Training of Trainers (ToT) program to provide them with the needed skills and knowledge to train other teachers in the same governorates on the usage of these kits.

Highlights from this training, that took place in Ismailia in January 2020, are presented in this photo essay.

UNICEF/Egypt 2020/Mohamed Ragaa

The training placed 54 master trainers as facilitators, sources of guidance and support to other teachers applying life-skills-based extracurricular activities and civic education in target governorates.

UNICEF/Egypt 2020/Mohamed Ragaa

In order to ensure that both the extracurricular content and delivery method are aligned, a thorough hands-on training program has been developed for trainers, which is integral to the success of the learning outcomes.

UNICEF/Egypt 2020/Mohamed Ragaa

Various activities in the training unleashed the creativity of the trainees, including creating silent drama scenes about different topics such as violence and dispute resolution. They were also trained on monitoring, evaluation and follow up tools.

UNICEF/Egypt 2020/Mohamed Ragaa

The extra-curricular activities, which were the focus of training, aim to enhance the targeted life skills within the framework of the strategy adopted by the ministry since October 2017. In addition, it aims at spreading a set of basic knowledge and behaviors among the targeted students about health, public safety, nutrition, diversity, tolerance peaceful dispute resolution, non-violence community participation and career guidance.

UNICEF/Egypt 2020/Mohamed Ragaa

As a result of this training, participants would be able to replicate and roll out knowledge and skills among teachers and facilitators in target governorates.

UNICEF/Egypt 2020/Mohamed Ragaa

The training further strengthened the trainees’ capacity in using active learning methodologies and tools to deliver messages and learning objectives in an unconventional way.