Project profile — Support to Jordan's Education Sector

This project aims to secure a future for children and youth by improving the quality of education in Jordan. The project responds to the priorities of Jordan’s Ministry of Education to: (1) strengthen the decentralized system for school planning and improvements; (2) provide appropriate teacher training to new graduates who are not currently sufficiently prepared before they start their teaching careers; (3) train supervisors to provide direct support, coaching and mentoring to new teachers; and (4) make schools, districts and units within the Ministry of Education more accountable for achieving educational reforms. Some project activities include: (1) providing modest grants to 3,725 schools, including schools hosting high numbers of Syrian refugee children, to improve teaching and learning; (2) providing comprehensive pre-service training to recruits with no previous teacher training; (3) developing guidelines and providing training on pedagogical principles to help supervisors support teachers; and (4) providing training for different employee groups on their roles, responsibilities and clear benchmarks to help achieve Ministry of Education objectives.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) improved quality of teaching and learning through the expansion of teacher training to 10,800 new recruits; (2) improved learning outcomes in 3,725 public schools through solutions tailored to individual schools (via small grants); (3) more effective support provided by 1,000 supervisors to help teachers improve their performance; and (4) clearer accountabilities amongst staff and division of the Ministry of Education.

Results achieved as of December 2017 include: (1) new leadership and mentorship roles of supervisors and principals have been defined, training materials developed, and over 5,800 supervisors and principals have been trained on their new role; (2) these new skills have been put to good use in the training and mentorship of over 10,800 newly appointed teachers through pedagogical training and in-classroom practicums, which in turn have had positive benefits for learning in the classroom; (3) in support of decentralization reforms, for the past three years, 3,550 schools and 42 field directorates have received training and support to develop improvement plans using standardized assessment tools and have received funds to implement their plans; (4) an accountability unit has been established within the Ministry of Education to improve education services through continuous monitoring of education quality at school level.