Lia Gigauri, the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia and Giorgi Machabeli, the Director of the National Center for Teacher Professional Development got acquainted with the progress of the trainings "Academy of Leadership" held in Telavi within the framework of the Teacher and School Director Professional Development Project.

The Deputy Minister talked about the school reforms in the sphere of education reforms. According to Lia Gigauri, the priority of the Ministry is to increase the quality of education and ensure equal access to thereof, the responsibility for which should be shared by both the Ministry and the school community.

Giorgi Machabeli, the Director of National Center for Teacher Professional Development, spoke about the decentralization of professional development services at the meeting. According to him, the Center is actually the only powerful organization that cares about the continuity of teachers' professional development, but its priority, since the last year, has been the development and promotion of the professional development service market.

"The Center performs its own role efficiently, but it is important to increase the quality of the competition to encourage the creation of a healthy competition in the market and emergence of many powerful suppliers. Since the end of 2016, the Center has started gradual process of services decentralization, which means that various training programs will be implemented not only by the Center but also by private suppliers, "said Giorgi Machabeli.

The TPDC Director also spoke about the Teacher's Pre-Service, Professional Development and Career Advancement Scheme and noted that the process of its introduction exceeded the expectations.

The training in Telavi were attended by more than 70 directors of public schools of Sighnaghi and Gurjaani municipalities who have been involved in various activities of the "Academy of Leadership" for already the second year.

"Leadership Academy" is a cycle of training and professional development activities for public school principals aimed at formation of educational leaders. It is already the second year that up to 1900 principals and as many facilitators selected on the school base have been involved in the project. Currently trainings are conducted in Telavi, Bazaleti and Tskaltubo on the issues related to improvement of school management. Training Topics are as follows: "Leadership and Management", "Development of Learning Community" and "Features of the 21st Century Classroom".

Teachers and School Directors Professional Development Project is being implemented in partnership with the Millennium Challenge Account - Georgia and the National Center for Teacher Professional Development.