Our partnership work with UNIDO Liberia has extended

The Commonwealth Education Trust is all about partnerships. We live for partnerships: they are how we reach global communities with our Teach2030 programme, and they are represented in every one of our four pillars (We Build, We Advise, We Elevate, We Work Together). It is therefore perhaps particularly thrilling when they are extended – in other words, when a partnership has worked so well, that both CET and the partner wish to continue working together to reach yet more teachers. 

We have been working with UNIDO in Liberia since 2020 with an original project aim of providing 168 TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) teachers with access to Teach2030 courses. 2021 saw the first extension of the partnership to enable us to deliver virtual and personalised workshops linked to each Teach2030 course (for example, a workshop on creating SMART lesson objectives and breaking down the learning was linked to the course ‘Planning Lessons to Reach All Learners’), as well as partner specific emails with useful and contextualised content for TVET teachers.  

Earlier this year, UNIDO Liberia extended their support to three further schools and this included provision of the Teach2030 courses, workshops and emails. Completion of courses is over 50% which is significantly above the global digital course completion rate of 5-15% – and impressive when our registration surveys show us that for many of our users, Teach2030 is their first experience of online learning to support their classroom practice.  

Workshops have been delivered by our Head of Education, Eleanor Sykes, and our Deputy Education Lead, Alex Starr. This continuity within the team has enabled CET to see how the engagement of the Liberia teachers has increased through each workshop – teachers have joined us from their classrooms, playgrounds and their houses on their smartphones, becoming more confident with each week. Many teachers have come back again and again, always with their own input and comments on strategies / pedagogical expertise shared during the workshops – telling us how they have improved their lesson objectives remembering to use SMART verbs, for example, or tried to incorporate more Turn Talk in their lessons. 

We are delighted at the success of our UNIDO in Liberia partnership. It has been rewarding, enlightening and a great learning experience for us, and we look forward to having UNIDO Liberia teachers as part of our global Teachh2030 community for a long time! Will you be our next partner?