Oct. 15, 2002
Advancing Teacher Prep in Africa
Consortium Led by Graduate School of Education and
Human Development Receives $5 Million Grant to Aid Ethiopian Educators
By Abby
Strunk
The US Agency for International Development/Ethiopia awarded a $5 million,
five-year cooperative agreement to an international university consortium
led by the GW’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development.
The consortium will work to advance teacher preparation in Ethiopian
Teacher Training Institutes, which prepare teachers for first through
fourth grades, and in Teacher Training Colleges, which prepare teachers
for fifth through eighth grades.
The initiative is designed to address the challenges facing the Ethiopian
education system, which has been affected by a long history of war and
poverty. A teacher supply shortage, gender and language barriers of
recruits, overly academic teacher preparation, and a lack of even minimum-level
qualifications are key issues confronting the country.
“Currently, popular demand for schooling is enormous, and teacher
supply is not keeping up,” says William Cummings, professor of
international education, who is serving as the program’s principal
investigator. “Ethiopia can develop a sound education system if
they keep up and if they develop a different approach to teaching.”
The consortium involves five major universities in addition to GW: Ethiopia’s
top institution of higher education Addis Ababa University (AAU), the
University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Buffalo, Michigan State
University, and the University of California at Los Angeles. GW plays
a key role in the consortium, serving as one of the two command centers;
the other is located at AAU. GW and AAU will assume primary responsibility
for the planning, management, and administration of the project.
There are three components to the program: Graduate students from the
consortium will travel to Ethiopia to serve as tutors in English and
teacher education; summer institutes will be designed to move teacher
educators from a book-learning approach to comprehensive guided practice;
and the consortium will work with managers of the Teacher Training Institutes
and Teacher Training Colleges to improve management in the areas of
finance, staff development, and compensation.
“The program in Ethiopia provides a mutually beneficial situation,”
says Cummings. “It opens a wealth of opportunities for students
and faculty. It makes the experience at GW even richer.”
Cummings has spent more than 10 years in developing countries working
with both ministries and universities developing policy research and
teacher education programs. Much of his recent professional career has
been committed to educational development in Ethiopia. He has served
as policy adviser to the Ministry of Education since 1998; a significant
amount of this time has been spent on a residential basis. In that capacity,
Cummings has become acquainted with many key players in Ethiopian education
as well as the problems they face.
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
