Syrian teachers participate in four day workshop that tackles technical and pedagogical approaches
13 July 2016 – Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq: UNESCO is holding a workshop on contextualized technical and pedagogical approaches for all managerial and teaching staff of Syrian refugee secondary schools in refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). This workshop is organized as part of the project “Improving access to secondary education for Syrian refugees”, funded by Japan.
The four-day workshop, which is currently in its third day, began on Monday, 11 July 2016. The aim of the workshop is to enhance the technical capacity of principals and teachers, and to increase resources of support for all the seven secondary schools for Syrian refugees.
The workshop is conducted by education specialists in mastery of subject matter – both managerial/administrative for principals and technical for teachers -, together with effective teaching methods; sessions on community engagement, and safe and stimulating schools are included.
“This is the first time when all the secondary schools for refugees come together. Now, at the end of the 2015/16 school year, it is a good opportunity to extract lessons learned, in preparation for the next academic year. Part of the aim of this workshop is to define our goals together, and to find ways to best support them” said UNESCO Project Manager, Eszter Szucs, during her opening remarks.
The workshop is relevant for a number of reasons. Syrian principals, especially in newly opened schools, are not fully familiar with KRI regulations. Awareness of these, above all concerning admission and accreditation, together with administrative procedures is essential.
Syrian teachers also work with a new curriculum (KRI versus Syrian); they need to master it, to be able to teach it. Throughout the workshop, participants are split into groups based on their respective areas; the small size of the groups allows for more interactive sessions where the participants are able to ask questions and discuss topics in depth. Sessions for teachers emphasize effective classroom approaches, including engagement of students, dealing with adolescence and the use of teaching aids.
According to information available from the schools, although practically everyone has at least a Bachelors degree, less than half of the teachers have a degree in the exact subject that they teach or more than two years of experience as teacher; a quarter graduated from teacher training institutes. Therefore, intensive workshops such as this are pertinent for the professional development of teaching staff.
In addition to motivation, rest and recuperation, a key objective of the workshop is the creation of communities of practice between all the schools, and between the schools and representatives of the departments of education as well as school supervisors. This is especially important given the isolation of the schools in camp settings and the limited capacity of the Ministry of Education to ensure direct supervision in light of the financial crisis impacting the KRI.
Outcomes of the workshop will be implemented and followed up starting with remedial classes to be offered by the schools in the summer period.
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