Education Programming
Understanding the issue
The crisis has resulted in more than 1,500 schools destroyed, teachers displaced, and a lack of funding for school books and supplies.
Schools that are still operating are overcrowded and understaffed, limiting the delivery of the basic curriculum as a result. The students that are able to attend are often traumatized or jaded from their crisis experiences while also generally lacking proper nutrition. The teachers lack their regular salaries as well as professional development while facing classrooms overflowing with over 60 students!
The end result is that the learning atmosphere borders on toxic with exhausted teachers repeating their monologues to uncomfortable and distracted students. The parents want more for their children, teachers desire to do better but don’t know how, while students feel like victims in the process. The education inspectors and managers are inadequately equipped to help school principles and teachers change these dynamics, while their success metrics only focus on exam scores and attendance rates.
Our Response
Our education program simultaneously confronts the multi-level problems in the Yemeni education sector.
- provide teachers and schools where there are none,
- distribute curriculum to children who lack it,
- train teachers how to engage their students in new ways,
- aid young people to cope with the trauma, and
- teach students how to maximize their educational opportunities.
TEMPORARY LEARNING CENTERS (TLCS): ITDC is supporting school renovations and operations that re-open schools in remote communities to allow out-of-school children to return to the classroom. Schooling operational costs are funded to provide desks and books for the children, salaries for the teachers as well as subsidizing exam costs to allow students to advance from grade to grade. So far ITDC has helped more than 2,000 children to return to the classroom, many after years of absence.
CLASSROOM DYNAMICS PROGRAM: To improve the effectiveness of education delivery and outcomes, ITDC provides two weeks of training to teachers in the topics of experiential learning, student learning styles and conflict resolution. At the same time, ITDC engages their students to help them learn how to dream again of a brighter future, identify their personal learning styles and finally how to understand and better engage with their teachers. The results are students re-engaging their learning with enthusiasm and hope – perhaps for the first time for many. ITDC has trained more than 2,000 students and 400 teachers since 2017.
QUALITY EDUCATION MANAGEMENT: ITDC has partnered with the Ministry of Education to help equip education inspectors with new tools that can help them accurately assess the student learning environment as well as design methods and improvements that can address deficiencies. This empowers principles and teachers to improve the quality of the education and its outcomes in their schools. ITDC has trained more than 120 education inspectors since 2017.
