Training Educators for Excellence Activity Georgia II - Education Project - Training Educators for Excellence Activity: At the time of compact development, the Government of Georgia (GoG) had established a framework for continuous professional development of teachers, including associated salary increases, in an attempt to improve teacher quality. The government entity responsible for teacher professional development, the Teachers' Professional Development Center (TPDC), was charged with implementation of this framework, and needed support to transition from exclusively providing certification-oriented short-term, subject matter-focused trainings to facilitating continuous professional development. At the school level, it was acknowledged that school directors needed support, as well as strong educational leadership support for improved learning outcomes.

The objectives of the Activity were to: (1) improve math, science, information and communication technology, and English teaching in order to improve learning in grades 7-12; and (2) improve school management. To accomplish these objectives, the activity offered training to all 2085 public school principals in Georgia, at least one school professional development facilitator per school, and all 18,750 secondary school STEM, geography and English teachers in the country. The activity aimed to have at least 74 percent of these educators complete the full training course, taking into consideration the length of the trainings and turnover of teachers. The full training program was delivered over a multi-year period and included several cycles of in-person training modules for teachers and principals, complemented with tasks and activities between the modules. The trainings covered leadership skills, student-centered pedagogy approaches, innovative and interactive teaching methods, subject matter expertise, science lab health and safety, and gender bias.

Another aspect of the activity was the provision of trainings in minority languages. The Georgian population is ethnically diverse and in many instances members of minority groups have limited command of the Georgian language. Limited language comprehension affects student's access and ability to actively participate in a mainstream education. In addition to Georgian language schools, the GoG funds public schools where the primary languages of instruction are Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Russian. Prior to the compact, ethnic minority population teachers had fewer opportunities than their ethnic majority counterparts to participate in professional development programs due to language barriers. Teachers and principals at these schools did not have access to the same training materials or trainers as Georgian-speaking teachers and principals, which furthered their exclusion from the education quality gains that the government was supporting. Notably, for the first time in Georgia's history, through the TEE Activity, ethnic minority teachers and principals received trainings in minority languages (Armenian, Russian, and Azerbaijani) that were identical in content and format to the trainings that Georgian-speaking educators received, delivered by minority language-speaking trainers. TPDC targeted 2,177 minority language teachers, 213 school professional development facilitators and 213 school directors.