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Technical Assistance
Empowering People and Nations through Knowledge
American Councils is an ideal partner to help achieve mission-oriented goals in the countries of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. We have conducted education programs since 1974, and we are the only organization with all the necessary resources in place. American Councils established its first permanent representation in Moscow in 1976, and now operates programmatic and administrative offices in eighteen countries of the region.
American Councils capabilities are diverse and include:
- Access to Education/Rural Education
- Administrator Training
- Curriculum Development/Textbooks
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
- National Assessment Programs
- Project Monitoring and Evaluation
- Study Tours and Fellowships
- Teacher Training
- Test Development and Administration
- Training of Trainers
History
Prior to its current role as an educational consulting organization, American Councils was created as a national professional language association, by teachers and for teachers. For over 27 years American Councils has been immersed in educational improvement projects of all types. It continues to carry out all the functions of the professional association, but now takes an active role in designing and implementing technical assistance projects involving teacher training, curriculum development, assessment and testing, administer training, ICT, and other areas.
Partnerships
American Councils works with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Group, the National Board for Professional Teachers Standards, and the US–EU–NIS Conference on the Harmonization of Educational Standards. American Councils was a major contributor to the National Standards for Foreign Language Learners and the Russian Language Curricular Framework for High School and College Russian in the United States.
Over the past decade American Councils has collaborated with Eurasian Ministries of Education in planning and developing educational systems. Recent projects have included joint conferences, symposia, and publications on classroom-based teaching methods, technology in classroom teaching, distance learning, and outcomes-based learning in Azerbaijan (2002), Belarus (2000,1999), Kazakhstan (1999), Russia (2001, 1998), Slovakia (1999), Ukraine (2001), and Uzbekistan (2001).
In close cooperation with the Ministries of Education of Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, American Councils has worked in the design and administration of the well-known "Transformation of the Humanities and Social Sciences Initiatives,” sponsored by philanthropist George Soros. That project included substantial curriculum development, teacher training, school administrator training, textbook development, advisory, and programming elements.
Our Approach
American Councils takes a comprehensive approach to ensure success in the creation and delivery of technical assistance. Critical factors in ensuring success include combining technical training with exposure to western experiences; linking participants from multiple regions of a country or participants from different countries to achieve cross border training; incorporating input and feedback from relevant government leaders and decision-makers to ensure institutionalization of technical knowledge; and the ability to design programs with realistic and attainable goals for the development of the target institution and country.
American Councils can undertake almost any kind of educational assignment, with experienced professional staff, extensive capabilities, and unique added value in Armenia. American Councils has successfully administered every programmatic and administrative aspect of often complex technical assistance programs.
Among the successful projects administered by American Councils are advisory services in education reform, education management training, establishment of twinning relationships between Eurasian and U.S. educational institutions, large-scale data analysis of educational programs, professional and academic testing, development of school networks and resource centers, arranging student and faculty exchanges, and training delivery systems.
Strong In-Country Ties
American Councils fields teams of experts with both the knowledge and the experience to find an appropriate balance between theoretical strength and real life applicability in the conceptualization and day to day implementation of an assignment. A particular strength of American Councils is the depth and range of local expertise that it can apply to assignments within any Eurasian or Balkan country, as well as the extensive human resources that it can draw upon resulting from years of operations within each country.
Click below for examples of projects administered for various kinds of funders: