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Teacher Trainings Begin!
P A G E 7
V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1
Environmental educaƟon of Malagasy students is a
top priority of our DLC‐SC iniƟaƟve. In fact, that
parƟcular component of our project begin even before
Erik’s arrival, in the form of teacher trainings in
environmental educaƟon. AŌer extensive planning, in
August we sent three Malagasy teacher‐trainers to the
town of Sambava. The three have had years of
experience with Madagascar Fauna Group (MFG)
teacher training workshops, and were lead by our long
Ɵme colleague and environmental educaƟon specialist
André Ratsimbazafy. The first phase of the training
program was not actually conducted with the
teachers, but rather focused on training of the future
trainers – 33 educaƟon professionals from the CISCOs
(school districts) of Sambava and Andapa.
The keystone of the week‐long training is the
teacher’s manual to environmental educaƟon, which
was developed by the MFG educaƟon team, and
approved for use in public schools by the Madagascar
Ministry of EducaƟon. The manual was designed to
dovetail with the exisƟng primary school curriculum,
and gives the teachers a source from which to teach
their students about Madagascar’s environment and
ecosystem relaƟonships, topics which are overlooked
in Malagasy primary school educaƟon. Eventually,
each of the 2,431 teachers in the two districts will
receive a copy of the manual, and training in how to
use it in their classes. In the next phase of the program
the newly trained trainers will lead workshops for the
school directors. That second phase has just begun,
with trainings of school directors, carried out in
Sambava and Andapa over the Easter holidays. In the
third and final phase, these directors will train the
teachers in their schools. The experienced MFG
trainers will periodically oversee training sessions to
assure quality and consistency. This method of teacher
training, using the teacher’s manual, has been
successfully implemented by the MFG in the Tamatave
area for over a decade, and we are all excited to now
be transferring that knowledge and experience to a
S A V A C O N S E R V A T I O N
André
(Photo by Lanto Andrianandrasana)
Gimod, the most experienced of the trainers
(Photo by Lanto Andrianandrasana)
School administrators, soon to be trainers
(Photo by Lanto Andrianandrasana)