In rural areas of El Salvador, teachers lack professional development opportunities, resulting in outdated teaching practices and poor student engagement. To address this, we developed a professional development cycle focused on collaboration to help teachers develop skills and better understand, apply, and reflect on their learning.
Nikmati's innovation involves implementing a collaborative professional development cycle for teachers in rural areas of El Salvador. Instead of isolated workshops, Nikmati engages with educators for up to 12 weeks, emphasizing skill development rather than the transfer of knowledge. This addresses the pressing need for professional development in underserved communities fostering teacher empowerment and modernizing teaching methods.
While Nikmati is relatively new, initial feedback and anecdotal evidence from participating teachers indicate positive outcomes. Educators report feeling more confident in implementing new teaching methods and observing enhanced engagement and learning outcomes among their students. Additionally, Nikmati is in the process of establishing more rigorous evaluation mechanisms to quantitatively measure the impact of its interventions on student learning outcomes, which will further demonstrate the effectiveness of its approach.
So far, we partnered with three local NGOs and trained 104 teachers from early childhood to secondary education. In 2020, we began a pilot online program with 17 secondary educators and three international volunteers. In 2021, we completed a second professional development cycle with the same group plus five more. In 2022, we trained 12 early childhood providers on learning through play. In 2023, we consulted and trained another NGO on their educational program. Currently, we're creating a syllabus and learning materials for an afterschool program with 42 facilitators serving 725 primary students in underserved areas. Our goals for the next three years: form partnerships with other NGOs, provide professional development for 300 teachers, and continue supporting those we've already trained.
Visit our website, www.nikmati.org, and fill in your information or contact us through social media @Nikmati_SV. Provide a brief summary of your context and needs. Within 24 hours, a member of our team will contact you to schedule a meeting, to learn about your organization and find ways in which we can collaborate together.
