NJCTL Begins to Expand Our Collaborative Impact in Africa
Over the past seven years, our organization has had a fortunate opportunity to work with several developing countries in Africa, with funding from programs supported by the World Bank. It has become a very productive collaboration for both NJCTL and the countries with which we have been working!
As a result of our success in New Jersey, we have been asked to share our unique tools: pedagogy, curriculum, assessment and professional development with African educators for projects in in The Republic of The Gambia and The Kingdom of Lesotho. NJCTL’s teaching methods and free, editable classroom teaching materials are proving to be highly effective tools for a different cultures and educational circumstances far beyond New Jersey’s borders. Fortunately, our work on the international stage is also providing significant insights that enable us to improve these very same tools and approaches to support our core constituents in New Jersey and throughout the U.S.
We are pleased to report that dramatic gains have been realized in The Gambia, as part our collaborative program there. Six members of our NJCTL team will return to the country during the second half of August to train the nation’s college and university faculty to use PSI® and PMI® as their pre-service program for science and mathematics, making those NJCTL programs the accepted curriculum for the entire country. NJCTL will also be training middle and high school teachers in the Progressive English Language Arts (PELA). This OER program that was developed with funds provided by The Gambia, from the World Bank, can now be used by teachers in New Jersey, the U. S. and anywhere in the world as a free, editable resource.
We are also in the process of wrapping up a successful three-year pilot program in the Kingdom of Lesotho, which was initiated as a result of our collaborative achievements in The Gambia. This pilot, funded by the Lesotho Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) and the World Bank (WB), is a key part of their national program to improve student outcomes in mathematics and science. Our recent July training included teachers from 24 Lesotho schools, spanning the entire country, along with officials from the MoET, the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) the University of Lesotho, and Lesotho College participating in each workshop. Ten higher education representatives from Malawi also visited this recent Lesotho workshop to research the potential of using PSI-PMI for their in-service and pre-service programs in their country as well.
It is exciting to see our work help make an impact for educators and students in Africa, and in turn to have our international learning help provide ever-improving methods and materials for educators and students in New Jersey and the throughout U.S.