Motivated and informed teachers influence student achievement. USAID is helping to inspire Georgian teachers through innovative training designed to increase primary school students’ reading and math skills.

In April 2013, USAID, through its Georgia Primary Education (G-PriEd) project, kicked off its training for grade 1-6 math and reading teachers from 122 Georgian language and ethnic minority primary schools. Over 1,200 primary teachers, including 167 from ethnic minority schools, are participating in the training program during the project’s 2013-2014 pilot phase. 

Enhancing students’ motivation is the focus of the teacher training. The initial training, delivered by 93 national trainers, provides primary teachers with student-centered instructional strategies, clear techniques, and skills-based methodology for addressing the learning needs of individual students. These methodologies are based on international best practices and will enable students to become better readers and mathematical problem solvers.

Participants agreed that the trainings were relevant and beneficial. “Training participants discussed the activities from the viewpoints of both teachers and students, clearly showing how we should deliver the activity in our classrooms," said Maia Turashvili, a teacher from the Gurjaani village primary school. 

Teachers particularly enjoyed the active training sessions where they were taught to develop instructional materials to use in their classrooms. “We love these handmade manipulative learning materials demonstrated by the trainers. We can prepare similar supplies ourselves at low cost to deliver our lessons,” said Bela Mirianashvili, principal and math teacher from Shilda village school.

USAID’s trainings offer a variety of new instructional ideas for teachers to use in their classrooms. As Rogneda Kardava, a reading teacher from Samegrelo, explained, “My classes became more diverse after attending the trainings. My students enjoy the new ways of learning familiar topics.”