Seychelles committed to strengthening the capacity of its education system |15 July 2015

Seychelles is hosting the second phase of the General Education Quality Analysis Framework (GEQAF) workshop, reflecting its commitment to strengthening the capacity of its education system.

The five-day workshop being held at the Adult Learning and Distance Education Centre (Aldec) at Mont Fleuri was officially opened on Monday.

It is being led by Leah Sikoyo, programme specialist from the International Bureau for Education at Unesco; Dr Joshua Muskin, consultant from Unesco in Geneva and Dr Marie-Reine Hoareau, focal point for GEQAF.

The Minister for Education, Macsuzy Mondon and over forty education officials and stakeholders from other institutions and organisations are attending the GEQAF Phase II workshop.

This workshop, which is a follow-up to the GEQAF Phase I which took place in Seychelles from July 23-25, 2013, is focussing on the following priority intervention areas within the Education Sector Medium Term Strategic Plan 2013-2017 and beyond: Curriculum development and reviews; Curriculum development and assessment in ECCE; Continuous assessment and programme evaluation; Competency-based curriculum/training; Inclusive education focusing on special needs learners; Integration of ICT in curriculum, learning and management and Technical Vocational Education and Training (Tvet).

The main objective of the workshop is for technical teams for each area to review and adopt a planning framework for the different interventions.
The teams will also identify cross-cutting issues for further collaboration and coordination within the ‘Education Sector Medium Term Strategic Plan 2013-2017 and beyond’ implementation, monitoring and evaluation framework.

“In fact, this assistance from Unesco/IBE comes at a highly opportune time when our ministry is in the phase of implementing its Education Medium Term Strategy Plan. Seychelles is one of the 10 countries heavily committed to the GEQAF programme in strengthening the capacity of its education system to provide high quality education and lifelong learning opportunities to all. It is in this context that Unesco has responded positively by providing expertise in the priority intervention areas of our Medium Term Strategy. We are very fortunate to benefit from the expertise of Mrs Sikoyo and Dr Muskin from IBE who will guide us in our activities throughout the week,” noted the principal secretary for early childhood, primary and secondary education, Merida Delcy.

“Seychelles is the first country to launch phase 2 this year and Seychelles is among the few countries where GEQAF is linked with the educational system and is being used as a tool. You are also an inspiration to us at Unesco for your role and measures taken regarding the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). We have recommended that Seychelles be used as a regional hub for ECCE and we hope that you will be able to accommodate other countries in learning more about ECCE,” said Mrs Sikoyo.

At the end of the workshop the ministry will come up with a planning framework for the different priority interventions following identification of crosscutting issues for further collaboration and coordination within the Education Sector Medium Term Strategic Plan 2013-2017 and beyond implementation, monitoring and evaluation framework.