TEACHER TRAINING

UNRWA's teacher education programme aims to maintain and improve the quality of education provided to Palestine refugee pupils in Agency schools. Through regular in-service training organized by the Institute of Education at UNRWA HQ Amman and implemented by the education development centres in the fields, some 1,048 staff are receiving in-service training in the 2001/2002 academic year. The Agency works to upgrade the professional qualifications of its teaching staff to enable them to adapt to curriculum changes, improve their teaching methods, and develop their educational and supervisory skills.

Teacher training at the pre-service level also seeks to ensure that sufficient qualified teachers are available to staff UNRWA's school system and other school systems in the region. The two-year pre-service teacher education programme, which has been offered in Jordan and the West Bank for the past four decades, was upgraded in 1993 to a four-year university level teacher education programme leading to a first university degree. Since then, the programme has been offered at the three UNRWA Educational Science Faculties (ESFs) in Amman (Jordan) and Ramallah (West Bank). In addition, the ESF in Jordan has offered, since 1993, an in-service three-year teacher education programme to help teaching staff upgrade their qualifications from a two-year diploma to a first university degree to meet new standards set by the Government of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. The three ESFs accommodate 1,630 students and teachers a year. A small pre-service two-year teacher training programme with an enrollment of 50 was introduced in September 1997 in Lebanon, where UNRWA faces difficulty in recruiting enough qualified teachers. In September 1998, this programme was offered to 100 students to train them to teach the first three primary grades.