College of Education to Work with Egyptian Faculties of Education
 

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded the College of Education a $7 million grant to collaborate with Egyptian universities to improve the quality of teacher education programs. The five-year project is a partnership between MSU and Egyptian faculties of education in seven regions of the country. The University of Pittsburgh will also collaborate, providing additional support on the project. The focus on improving the quality of teacher education is just one component of a large-scale usaid-funded effort to support systemic reform of elementary and secondary education in Egypt. The overall project is managed by the Academy for Educational Development and the American Institutes for Research.

Within the faculties of education initiative, the project will collaborate on all aspects of teacher education, ranging from setting standards to curricula, pedagogy, field experience, and assessment. There also is an emphasis on policy research, institutional transformation, and leadership development to strengthen the faculties in general and school-university partnerships in particular. The setting of standards is similar to work done within the Teachers for a New Era project at MSU, thus providing common ground to launch this collaboration.

To support the collaboration, various efforts to open channels of communication are already underway. MSU welcomed the first group of Egyptian professors for a study visit in February. MSU professors have been making visits to Egypt since last summer, and much communication is taking place electronically, with special facilities provided by an “eStrategies” team.

“In spite of the differences between the two societies,” said Assistant Dean Jack Schwille, who is heading the project, “many of the issues facing teacher education are similar. We feel that both sides will benefit from addressing these issues together and trying to overcome the weaknesses of teacher education in a collaborative way.”
Much of the project is still in the planning stages, but there is a staff in place both on campus and in Egypt. At MSU, Schwille and Project Director Gretchen Sanford are working with a senior advisory group of college faculty and administrators. In addition, Rhonda Egidio is heading the electronic communications strategies work. In Cairo, the project has an office consisting of a director, five Egyptian Ph.D.s, and three administrative support staff members. The Cairo director is Professor Mark Ginsburg, who is on leave from the University of Pittsburgh.