ATTAIN Project Workshops and Stakeholder Event, May 2023

The ATTAIN partners met at Paro College of Education from 8th to 11th May 2023 to do further work on the Diploma for Teacher Assistants. Representatives from Roehampton University in the UK, Evalag in Germany, and Paro College of Education worked together throughout the week refining the exciting and very relevant modules developed for the Diploma. We now have all of the modules in place, the Teacher Assistant Professional Standards are almost finalised and the programme is really taking shape. Resources funded by the EU have now arrived, and will shortly be ready for faculty to access in the College Library.

On Wednesday 10th May, a stakeholder event was held with over 30 representatives from across the education sector in Bhutan and representatives of Disability Organizations in Bhutan, including more than twenty students of Master of Education in Inclusive Education from Paro College of Education. The session was opened by the President of Paro College, Dr Dorji Thinley, who gave a very passionate and eloquent address, underlining the need for the TA Diploma and the professional standards. Pema Chhogyel, a Senior Programme Officer at the Department of School Education, Ministry of Education, also attended the event and was able to update Project partners and attendees about the Ministry’s support for the new Diploma programme. Dr Karma Jigyel, the ATTAIN Project lead, outlined the ATTAIN project in more detail, and Bridget Middlemas and Jo Peat from Roehampton University gave the delegates an insight into how teaching assistants work in UK school. Two representatives from two local schools with SEN provision (Drugyel LSS and Yangchen Gatshel HSS) then gave excellent presentations outlining the need for TAs in their contexts. The event included detailed question and answer sessions, which allowed delegates to explore areas of interest in greater depth.

The progress made during this week exceeded expectations and the development of TA training provision as envisaged by ATTAIN promises to be a very exciting and worthwhile initiative, which we hope will launch in 2024.