What is it about?

Global School Partnerships (GSP) facilitates partnerships between schools in Bangladesh and the UK that promote global education through the curriculum and provides funding for teacher exchange visits to enable them to develop curriculum projects based on global themes. The programme is funded by UKaid from the Department for International Development and managed by a consortium of the British Council, Cambridge Education Foundation, UK One World Linking Association, and Voluntary Services Overseas.

Why get involved?

Global School Partnerships is a powerful, enjoyable and exciting way of bringing global issues into the lives of young people, their teachers, families and local communities. Having two sets of teachers and students working together on the same project on two sides of the globe is hugely rewarding and can lead to extremely beneficial learning outcomes. It motivates the pupils, across countries and continents to become more informed, active global citizens.

What is Global Dimension / Global Education?

The term 'global dimension' refers to the extent to which global development issues are integrated within the formal curriculum. A global dimension in the curriculum helps to extend students' view of the world and helps them to explore their perceptions.

It can be useful to break the term down into five key concepts:

•Social justice and equity  

•Diversity

•Globalisation and interdependence

•Sustainable development

•Peace and conflict

What funding is available?

Reciprocal Visit Grant

Reciprocal Visit grants are for young partnerships that are laying the foundations for long term collaborative work that will embed a global dimension in the schools' curricula

Global Curriculum Project Grant

Global Curriculum Project grant enables well established partnerships to further develop joint curricular activities with a global dimension theme.

Local Authority Grant

Local Authority grants are designed to create international relationships that can broker and support partnerships with a focus on global education between Local Authorities in the UK and similar bodies overseas.

This year (2010-11), the following LA clusters are being supported under the programmes:

Southern Education and Library Board with District Education Office, Panchagarh

Neath Port Talbot with District Education Office, Rangpur.

How to get involved?

You can establish a new partnership in either of the following ways:

•Register your school on Global Gateway website and search for a suitable partner school from the database of registered schools.

•Contact  your local British Council office to help you find a suitable partner school in the UK and to participate in an Introductory Workshop (face to face or online).

Training and Development for teachers

Global School Partnerships can provide opportunities for teachers' continuing professional development through a range of ongoing workshops and seminars. These workshops provide space for conversations to take place between teachers involved in school partnerships with global dimension goals. The workshops address themes related to partnerships management and development, and provide practical tools to enable long-term collaboration between schools interested in jointly exploring global dimension goals.

Global Teacher Accreditation (GTA) project

The British Council and the Cambridge Education Foundation, UK have developed the GTA project to develop teachers as researchers, and to recognise their work in encouraging global education through partnerships. Teachers are trained to design and develop proposals for research-based projects. All the participating teachers are required to submit a written piece on their research enquiry. On completion of the accreditation process, among other skills, the teachers will be able to confidently introduce and manage projects in their schools and also evaluate the impact of collaborative curriculum work. 53 teachers are participating in the GTA project this year.

Contact us

Project Manager Global School Partnerships (Bangladesh): Ahsanul Azad

Project Coordinator Schools & Sport (Bangladesh): Afroza Yasmin

For more information on Global School Partnerships, visit www.dfid.gov.uk/globalschools.