Training Effective Afghan Teachers

The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) continues to make training teachers a priority. AIL has now trained over 12,000 teachers. Thus far in 2007, AIL has trained 274 teachers in AIL’s intensive, one-month, foundational pedagogy seminar and has trained 347 teachers in various workshops. 18,630 students will benefit from a higher quality education from the training of their teachers.

Feedback from just one of the pedagogy seminars in Herat included the following comments:

• In a radio interview, the deputy of the Herat Ministry of Education praised AIL’s seminar and said, “AIL’s seminar is the best because it is for 20 days and it has a positive effect on the teachers and they can learn many useful methods during these days.”

• The participants found making a lesson plan very important because they did not know how to write one previously. They also greatly appreciated learning how to keep records of examination results. Of the techniques they learned, they found the question and answer method most useful because it activates the students and gets them to think.

• The teachers were taking the seminar while classes were in session. They reported that when they returned to their classrooms and practiced the methods they learned in the seminar, there were positive changes in the students and the students became more interested in their studies. They were surprised and pleased by this and said they would continue using the new methods because it made their students more interested.