VVOB developed a new education strategy

Our organisation is in a transition with respect to its educational focus. On the one hand we round up our current Multi-Year Programme in 2013. At the same time we plan a new Multi-Year Programme, which will start in 2014. VVOB increases its specialisation in education for development. We focus on three objectives and three education components.

Education objectives

The education sector is a very broad domain. In order to offer our partners even more high-level expertise, VVOB increases its specialisation in education for development. We focus on three objectives:

• Early Education teachers and school leaders provide all learners equal opportunities to enhance their further education and future success.
   
• Primary Education teachers and school leaders use appropriate teaching, monitoring and follow-up strategies to improve learning outcomes of all learners in numeracy, literacy and life skills.
   
• Teachers and school leaders of Secondary Technical and Vocational Education prepare all learners according to the demands of the society and the world of decent work.

Education components

To realise our education objectives, we focus on capacity development of local education authorities on the following three education components:

• Teacher Development
  Teachers are key in improving learning outcomes of children; a focus on Teacher Development is therefore an obvious choice. The primary focus is on capacity development of organisations and institutions that target the improvement of pedagogical and didactical competences of teachers, their access to qualitative learning materials and active pedagogies and didactics. This involves not only appropriate initial teacher training, but also professional growth at different stages in their learning process.
  The context analysis within and with the country determine on which aspects of the professional development of teachers the programme focuses.
   
• School Leadership
  The professional development of teachers also requires effective school leadership. School leadership is therefore another focus area of VVOB. School leaders who support, evaluate and develop teacher quality have a high impact on children’s learning outcomes. And from an equity perspective, effective school leaders are particularly important in the improvement of low performing and disadvantaged schools.
   
• Strategic Support
  Enabling a strong policy environment for the professionalisation of teachers and school leaders is equally important. VVOB will enhance dialogue, communication and collaboration between different educational stakeholders in the areas of teacher development and school leadership.

A worldwide participatory process

This strategy is the result of a worldwide participatory process. It included among others a lot of input from external and internal education and development experts. We took into account the most important education needs as identified in international research and also the education strategies and priorities of our partner countries.

The local contexts of our partner countries will also determine how these education objectives and components can be put into practice. This is not a blueprint that can be replicated. It is rather a strategic framework that gives direction. Our partners and local teams used this framework to do a context analysis, to compare it with the education plans of the country, to identify needs and targets... and to formulate their education programmes... Our next Multi-Year Programme takes off in January 2014.