Every week district training facilitator Tojiddin Karimov travels over an hour away from Dushanbe to the district of Shahrinav to train teachers from surrounding schools. Tojiddin is one of 125 district training facilitators from across Tajikistan who make the journey each week to their designated community-based methodological unit (CBMU), an anchor school in the community for teachers from surrounding schools to receive teacher training and support.
The USAID Read with Me project introduced the CBMU training sessions in October 2020 to strengthen teachers’ abilities and guide them to serve as mentors for their peers at their schools. This new method was created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic prevention measures. Prior to COVID, the program’s regional training would normally have 300-500 teachers in attendance.
In July 2020, USAID partnered with the Ministry of Education and Science of Tajikistan to mandate this school-based mentoring approach for teachers, making CBMUs critical hubs for strengthening the skills of 7,000 teachers selected for professional development.
To support the CBMUs, USAID also created a digital platform for teacher training and professional development, available for free in both online and offline formats. Tojiddin, an experienced teacher himself, and his fellow facilitators introduced this training platform to teachers through the CBMUs. The training allows teachers to access all training modules and their corresponding assessments digitally. USAID provided tablets to the facilitators to use for demonstrating the platform to teachers at their CBMU, as well as for capturing real-time data on teacher’s performance during classroom observations. In October 2020, the USAID Read with Me project introduced the digital platform and CBMU training sessions to 1,008 schools nationwide.
Another important aspect of the CBMU training is that district training facilitators visit each teacher’s school to conduct classroom observations. Afterward, a facilitator provides specific feedback for a teacher, including evaluating how well a teacher implements the lessons from the CBMU training. The facilitators upload the findings of the classroom observation into the digital platform on their tablets, enabling teachers to track their progress and for the data on overall teacher progress across Tajikistan to be easily captured.
Teachers, like Gulnora Pulatova from School #14 in Shahrinav, appreciate the informative classroom observations, which were different from the typical “inspections” they are used to. “The facilitator watched my lesson and told me about shortcomings he noticed. I will definitely take these suggestions into account in my teaching practices. I will practice this approach to make my classes more interesting for my students,” says Gulnora.
After participating in the CBMU training, teachers like Gulnora then led training sessions at their own school for their peers using the content they learned from their district training facilitator. This ensures that all 7,000 teachers from the 1,008 target schools benefited from the training.
“Many teachers from my school now observe my class because my lessons have become more interesting,” says Gulnora. “I studied all of the modules provided by our facilitator, and then instructed other teachers how to do the same.”
Many teachers quickly saw success from the new methods. Mavlyuda Kholova, a teacher from School #41 in Shahrinav who participated in Tojiddin’s CBMU training sessions, reports. “We started working more closely with children who lag behind or have disabilities. Before our training, we did not work with these students separately, but now we do, and we see the children’s interest in learning grow.”
Gulnora also found that her students have noticed a difference in her teaching practices. Many children have gone home and told their parents about what they are learning. “Many parents ask me about what we’re teaching. We invite parents to observe our classes so they can see our new teaching approaches and the impact they have on children's learning.”
During the CBMU training, Tojiddin also provides guidance to teachers to better understand how to use the children’s books and supplementary materials donated to schools by USAID. USAID will donate approximately 1.3 million books to 3,001 Tajik and Russian schools nationwide by the end of the project later this year. “Students need more than just one text – they need many books for extracurricular reading, like fairy tales, to develop their reading skills,” says Tojiddin. “Teachers are very pleased to have these materials to use in their lessons. When children become curious, they achieve a higher level of thinking.”
One of the most significant aspects of the CBMU training approach is how the teachers share their successful teaching practices and experiences with their colleagues. Tojiddin thinks that the CBMU structured approach will ensure the sustainability of the project’s initiative. “A teacher who helps a colleague at school will find that their colleague will perform better and the teacher will feel that they have achieved the goal of transferring knowledge,” says Tojiddin. “It is a great honor for a teacher to be part of the CBMU team and share the innovative teaching practices and techniques among other teachers.”
USAID