The project will develop a model (accredited Professional Development Certificate) for capacity building in mainstream pre and primary school teachers in Grenada and Seychelles. This will be achieved through institutional cooperation between the National Institute of Education in Seychelles and Theophilus Albert Marryshow Community College in Grenada. The network will be supported by the expertise in the field of teacher training of Roehampton University in the UK.
Training trainers in Grenada and Seychelles
The first phase of the project will consist of adaptation of UK train the trainers models and training materials to make them relevant to teachers in Grenada and Seychelles. This will be carried out through knowledge transfers from the Roehampton University’s School of Education that has extensive experience in teacher training as well as a history of delivering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Special and Inclusive Education.
A comprehensive range of training materials will be adapted to facilitate the delivery of a Professional Development Certificate in the local contexts. These materials will include a detailed workbook, tutor guidelines, and resources, including access to electronic resources, all designed to promote the delivery of a high quality in- service training. The materials will be relatively inexpensive to produce and have the advantage that they can be disseminated easily to large numbers of teachers. The training will be piloted by mainstream pre and primary school teachers engaged in fostering inclusive provision in a pre and primary mainstream setting.
Five teacher trainers and two officials from Ministries of Education from Grenada and Seychelles will be trained to run a five-day intensive teacher training programme aimed at enhancing the knowledge skills and understanding of in-service teachers in the topic area of special and inclusive education.
Developing inclusive education Professional Development Certificate During the second phase of the project, a locally accredited Professional Development Certificate in Special and Inclusive Education will be developed and implemented in both Grenada and Seychelles. Here, training materials will be adapted to the local contexts in the two countries and taking into account the specific cultural, social and political context and the inclusive education policy of each country.
The Certificate will take into account the lessons learnt from previous trainer trainings, based on feedback from relevant partner groups. Rigorous evaluation of previous phases of the project will ensure that the final product achieves its goal: to support the professional development of teachers and with the primary aim of enhancing the quality of special needs provision in the inclusive pre and primary classroom setting.
In the project’s third phase, the program will be tested with 20 pre-school/primary school teachers selected in each country who will ultimately be awarded the Professional Development Certificate. In turn, they will be able to disseminate their knowledge to others in their countries.
