Activity report for 1996(PDF) - Soros Foundation Moldova

- development of a system for supporting “bottom-up”in-service training of teachers, training of schooladministrators and teams of Humanities teachersfrom Network Schools, and supporting, at a later stage,training activities organised by them in their regionsIn 1997 the Open Projects section offers support toother educational initiatives that were not covered bythe program during 1996 but would be beneficial,according to education specialists at various levels.For 1997, this section will organise:- a contest for School Development Projects(a seminar on School Development Projects Planningwas organised for Network Schools in March 1997);- a new competition for creating Humanities ResourceCentres in schools- competitions for various education initiatives (e.g.summer camps, training activities, experienceexchange programs, parent and community involvementin education initiatives, etc.)- initiation of a scholarship program for young teachersfrom rural areaIn 1996 the activities included:-Publishing of School Textbooks - Emergency Program-Pro Didactica-Curriculum Development-Teacher TrainingSection IPUBLISHING OF SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS -EMERGENCY PROGRAMSoros Foundation Moldova’s initiative to contribute tothe promotion of new teaching materials, developedaccording to new concepts and tested within a one yearprogram by the Institute of Psychology and PedagogySciences, was supported by the Ministry of Educationwho offered an entire list of recently developed materials.An Expert Committee recommended materials forteaching Romanian to grade 1. The main reason forthis particular choice was that both concept and contentare based on principles of a learner-centred approach,moving from informative instruction to a skill developmentteaching process. The testing results from pilotschools were positive. From the set of 6 titles, theFoundation supported the publishing of 4: Supplementaryexercises and Tests for Students - 60000copies, Teachers Guide - 5000 copies, Reading Set -5000 copies, and Demo Charts - 5000 copies. TheMinistry of Education is in charge of producing theStudent’s Workbook (part 1and 2), paying authorshonoraria and distributing the materials to schools.As the manuscripts were prepared, a competition forpublishing houses was announced in November 1995.10 publishers participated at the initial stage, and only 4were qualified for final bidding. An Expert Committee,including Foundation representatives, MOE specialists,an authors group and a printing shop person selected2 independent publishing houses, Arc and Cartier.Materials financed by the Foundation were ready fordistribution by August 20, 1996. The first opencompetition for publishers (unfortunately, no statepublishers participated) can be considered animportant achievement of the program. It underlined,especially for publishers, the imperative of gettingexperience in working with teaching materials, an areathat can offer a permanent employment.Next year, the MOE will need to reprint the Exercisesand Tests, since this is a workbook, but the hope isthat in 1997 the publisher will solve a problem whichwas not solved in 1996: to convince the authors andthe MOE to change the concept of the material so thatit will become a set of tests, and will not have aworkbook format on which the students write andwhich can never be reused. This change will notrequire extra money.Expenditures:Rollover Funds from 1995 $ 52,300.00Program Funds 1996 $ 53,900.00Total: $ 106,200.00Section IIPRO DIDACTICAObjective 1. Centre Establishment.A suitable place for the information centre and for theprogram administration office was identified, renewedand appropriately organised.Objective 2. Library Collection.The library funds collection started with donations anda c t i v i t y r e p o r t ‘ 9 6 9