The Latvian Ministry of Education wished to improve the quality of pre-service teacher education across Latvia, and asked the British Council for help.

Client, stakeholders, partners

• Ministry of Education and Science, Latvia
• Curriculum and Examination Centre
• Five Higher Education establishments in Latvia

Focus
Improving the quality of pre-service teacher education across Latvia

The project
The Latvian Ministry of Education wished to improve the quality of pre-service teacher education across Latvia, and asked the British Council for help. The aim was to increase the effectiveness of school-based mentoring and university-based methodology courses in all subjects, and to create an effective, quality system of PRESETT partnership between universities and schools.

During the first phase, the project worked with English Language Teaching PRESETT educators, both mentors and methodologists. The courses were facilitated by experts from Romania and Hungary and were influenced by the approach described in the book Mentor Courses, by Angy Malderez and Caroline Bodoczky (Cambridge University Press). Angy Malderez (University of Leeds, UK) was the Project Consultant.

In the second phase, a group of 13 Latvian mentors were trained as mentor trainers. They extended the project initiatives to non-ELT subject areas. The newly trained mentors presented their mentoring practice results in the national conference.

The other achievements of the project were:

• The core mentor training course was developed and standardised
• The booklet Mentoring in Europe A Latvian Perspective was published in Latvian and English
• An Association of Teacher Educators was set up (ALSI)
• Cooperation between teacher education institutions and the Ministry of Education was strengthened
• The results of the project were disseminated in the European seminar in Latvia within the framework of the Council of Europe in-Service training programme "Pestalozzi".

What the stakeholders say

"The PRESETT Partnership project gave rise to a new movement, namely, the establishing of a mentoring system in education in Latvia. Thanks to the project initiatives there are 274 school teachers and university lecturers who have completed intensive mentoring courses, and 12 mentor trainers that keep educating the mentors for all subject areas. The partnership established between universities and schools has improved the quality of pre-service students' teaching practice and contributed to the induction year of the novice-teachers. I have also gained a lot myself personally and professionally from being involved in this project. Thanks to the project initiator Sue Mace and all the British Council team".
Dr.Paed Docent Indra Odina, Teacher Education Department, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Latvia

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