Better Education through Teacher Training and Empowerment for Results (BETTER)

This project supports learning in Mozambique during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis by strengthening the Ministry of Education’s electronic platform to facilitate distance learning for student teachers and distance teaching. This project also supports students’ return to school upon re opening and provides materials to assist primary students and their families with learning activities. The project will also support the Ministry to disseminate information on the prevention of COVID-19 using media such as radio social media posters and sound trucks. These activities facilitate the continuity of education with online and offline options in districts already funded under the Better Education through Teacher Training and Empowerment (BETTER) project. Projects activities include: (1) providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Education and Human Development’s Institute for Open and Distance Education platform to make learning materials available nationally to primary and secondary students and student-teachers; (2) creating manuals that can be shared using widely available software for use nationally by student-teachers; (3) distributing hygiene products to four targeted teacher training institutes and 61 primary schools; (4) disseminating high-quality gender-sensitive learning and reading materials to support primary students' literacy supported by teachers’ guidance through radio programs; (5) disseminating essential educational materials and pedagogical support to primary students especially the most vulnerable in Mozambique’s Pemba and Cuamba districts; and (6) providing essential messages to support students’ to return to schools through a three episode radio soap opera.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved quality of teacher training program at four partner teacher training colleges in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Tete Maputo and Niassa provinces; (2) improved student-centred and gender-sensitive teaching pedagogy and methodologies used by student-teachers and graduates from the four teacher training colleges in Cabo Delgado Tete Maputo and Niassa provinces; and (3) improved student-centred and gender-sensitive management and supervision at partner primary schools in Cabo Delgado Tete Maputo and Niassa provinces.