Center for Professional Learning Continues Initiatives to Bring Holistic Professional Learning to Educators Across Lebanon
For more than a decade, Lebanon has been at the epicenter of the ongoing crisis of displacement, hosting approximately 1.5 million refugees, including more than 500,000 school-age refugee children and youth.
Many of these children face difficulties accessing learning, and the nation’s education systems and teachers also face challenges providing quality education to many displaced students alongside other students across Lebanon in a national school system adversely affected by ongoing economic turmoil and stress in the region.
In response, Childhood Education International’s Center for Professional Learning (CPL) has been collaborating with educators in Lebanon to support teachers working across the national education system, as well as through supporting and complementary programs offered by INGOs and private schools. The aim of the project is to bolster inclusion, equity, and holistic learning for every child throughout Lebanon.
Launch of a New Project
Building on our two-year Quality Holistic Learning project, CE International recently launched the new Quality Holistic Professional Learning in Lebanon (QHPLL) project. The QHPLL project seeks to build on previous work to further equip and empower teachers to lead change in their communities.
“We believe that one competent, connected teacher can uplift and sustain professional learning for many,” said Julie Kasper, Director of Teacher Learning and Leadership at CPL. “Through the vision and local leadership of diverse educators working as project consultants and fellows across Lebanon, we look to empower teachers to use holistic pedagogies aligned with the Lebanese curriculum and the national social and emotional framework to meet the needs of every child in their classrooms.”
The QHPLL project seeks to achieve the following goals:
- Share and co-create professional development resources in Lebanon
- Build strong communities of practice among educators across all of the country’s governorates
- Host workshops within the Communities of Practice that reach 1,000+ educators in Lebanon
- Enable and empower educators to support and lead for quality holistic learning for every child in Lebanon
Co-Creating Professional Learning
CPL’s approach to professional learning is to co-create with educators and other technical experts to ensure that materials are contextualized, appropriate, accessible, and effective.
Building on success working with educators who served as Project Fellows as part of the Quality Holistic Learning project, CPL sought to recruit project fellows for the QHPLL project. Hundreds of candidates applied to become fellows, and ten were selected from across all eight governorates in Lebanon.
The QHPPL Project Fellows bring a breadth of experience working in private and public schools, as well as NGOs and represent the country’s three linguistic communities – Arabic, English, and French.
The CE International team is collaborating with them and with three consultants in the region.
Ongoing Work
The QHPLL Project is a continuation of the Quality Holistic Learning project (2021-2023), which resulted in the creation of the digital Open Educational Resource Library and the publication of more than 40 professional development resources for educators in Lebanon, Chad, Niger, and Kenya.