British Council and UNESCO work together to find the key to improving the skills and career prospects of young people in Iraq
British Council and UNESCO work together to find the key to improving the skills and career prospects of young people in Iraq
What will it take to train young people so that they have the skills to secure jobs that do not exist today? Some suggest that nearly half of the school-aged children entering education today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that aren’t on our radar yet.
Creating a Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system that can keep pace with global change and equip young people in Iraq with the skills required to meet the unknown workplace of the future is core to an ambitious capacity building programme being implemented by the British Council in partnership with UNESCO funded by the European Union.
The 18 month programme aims to enhance the capabilities of TVET leaders, teachers, trainers and instructors across the country to effectively respond to the challenge of developing a high quality and responsive TVET system.
Brilliant leadership, teaching and training does not happen by chance, there is a clear link between effective sustained professional development and its impact on the learning outcomes for young people.
The vision for this programme is that these skilled leaders and teachers will contribute to the development of a fit for 21st century purpose education system in Iraq, which will equip students with qualifications to secure a job and decent income, with career opportunities now and for the future. The project will also enable domestic and international employers to directly recruit young skilled Iraqis.
Our objective
Strengthening the TVET sector in Iraq, will address the youth unemployment challenge facing the country. It is acknowledged that central to successful implementation to any educational reform process are the countries leaders, teachers and trainers who are key change agents within the process of improving the quality and relevance of TVET.
Building capacity and capabilities of TVET leaders, teachers and trainers programme is being implemented by the British Council in partnership with UNESCO across. Over the next 18 months the programme aims through targeted impact-led activities to build the capacities and competencies of 100 Leaders, 110 Master Trainers and 1090 Teachers, Trainers and Instructors by February 2018.
Our strategy
The British Council continuous presence and the strong relationships built on trust and understanding has been pivotal to securing commitment, engagement and ownership we are experiencing across all aspects of the programme. Since starting the project in August 2016 we have achieved the following:
- Conducted a comprehensive Training Needs Analysis capturing the skills needs of more than 1400 leaders, teachers, trainers and instructors. The British Councils experience of developing culturally relevant and inclusive delivery methodologies contributed to the increased participation of women - 45% of the respondents were female, and ensuring representation from remote areas of Iraq.
- Developed comprehensive year long leadership programme and professional standards, which has been endorsed by representatives of Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in Baghdad and Erbil and UNESCO, building on national and international best practice.
- Developed a modern culturally relevant in-service training programme linked to the new national competence based curriculum being developed as part of the wider reform programme, and professional standards for teachers and trainers within the TVET sector which has been endorsed representatives of Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
“All acts and tasks were excellent and applicable in our environment”, Teacher, Iraq
Our impact
Our approach towards resilience, sustainability and inclusion has been embedded within the principals and delivery methodology of this programme and we are starting to see initial results.
There is now a pool of 18 highly skilled national leadership and teacher trainers that have been recruited against the new professional standards. These trainers have been trained by international experts to cascade the capacity building programmes to over 1300 leaders, teachers and trainers, two of the 20 national trainers are women.
12 teachers and trainers have successfully completed the first of three training the trainer workshops. Their passion, commitment and energy across the five days are reflected in the positive feedback received at the end of the course.
“…best workshop ever been to (especially timekeeping) never seen anything like this…helped me a lot…time to reflect”, Teacher, Iraq
“It will have effects on our job performance”, Teacher, Iraq
These teacher trainers will now be supported to cascade the new in-service training to 110 Master Trainers, who in turn will cascade the training to over 1100 teachers across the country, drawing on their newly acquired skills, knowledge and professional support networks.