Project News

The project report in September is about the training of trainers (TOT)

What is the training for trainers (TOT)?

Aimed at the dissemination of EQUITV Program, in the phase 2, the Project will provide the EQUITV Program workshop in all target provinces. It is possible to appoint the officers in the Department of Education to be the trainers and send them over provinces every time when the workshop is conducted. However such way above may be inefficient to cover all target provinces and achieve province-wide dissemination. Therefore in the phase 2 the Project adopts the method called "cascade" through which the number of trainers and participants are literally increased.

The Cascade method is comprised of three levels, National, Provincial and Cluster. First of all, the Project selects the qualified officers in NEMC and provides the series of TOT. Trained officers become the National Trainers (NT) who provides the TOT in the target province. At the second level of cascade, the series of TOT for the Provincial Trainers (PT) are conducted by the NTs. At the third and last level of cascade, the PTs provide the EQUITV program workshops for people concerned in a cluster such as a teacher, principal, head teacher, and board of management. The number of trainer and participants at each level will be increased, for instance, 10 for NT, 35~40 for PT and hundreds for the cluster.

In early September, the project team did the selection of potential candidate for NTs and the planning the module of TOT and the EQUITV Program workshop. Then they developed the resource materials such as DVDs and training guides accordingly. As for the contents many had to be covered in the module although the affordable period of TOT and workshop was 5 days at most. Therefore the project team carefully examined each of contents and decided what to include. It was quite laborious to develop the comprehensive module in the limited timeframe.

Next to the preparation of training the first TOT was conducted by the project team through which ** NTs were fully trained and equipped for TOT at the provincial level.

The first TOT for PTs was conducted in NCD (National Capital District) where Port Moresby, the capital, is located. Selected 34 trainees participated in the series of TOT and acquired the knowledge-based skill to become PTs. As NCD was comprised of 6 zones the trainees were selected from primary school teachers in each zone so that they, later on, could conduct the cluster training throughout the NCD.

In late September, the Project finally reached the third level of cascade, the cluster. The trained PTs were assigned respectively in the pilot school and they provided the EQUITV Program workshops for participants comprised of a teacher, principal and head teacher. More than 800, in total, participants had the opportunity to access to the workshop and learned about the EQUTIV Program.

The participants commented positively upon the workshop;

"I would like to utilize the EQUITV Program in my class"

"The workshop was very much practical to learn how to utilize the EQUITV Program".

The project team will continue to monitor the status whether they introduce and utilize the EQUITV Program in classroom teaching.