Excellence in Teaching Awards to recognize English instructors (12/01/96)

Excellence in Teaching Awards to recognize English instructors

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The United States Information Service, along with Ukraine's Ministry of Education, on November 1 announced a joint project for assistance to Ukraine's secondary schools.

The program, called the U.S.-Ukraine Excellence in Teaching Awards, will honor 350 secondary school teachers for outstanding English-language programs. The goal is to reward high-caliber schools with material and equipment grants for use in the teachers' classrooms and at their schools.

Fifteen of the teachers will receive fellowships for summer study in the United States.

This year the accent is on English-language courses, but in the following years other curricula will be emphasized. Ambassador William Green Miller said that one goal for going with English-language teachers the first year is to emphasize the close relationship between Ukraine and the United States that has developed in five years of Ukrainian independence.

He added, "It is our belief that a well-educated society can benefit people throughout the world. Programs such as these allow for the exchange of information on a world level, which can benefit Ukraine."

Ukraine's Vice Minister of Education Valentyn Zaichuk said the program will in fact be an extension of an established educational program in Ukraine called the "Honored Teachers of Ukraine," in which teachers are honored with a certificate and congratulated by the president. "We hope the new program will be a wonderful addition to our existing program and will stimulate teachers to improve," explained Mr. Zaichuk.

The program will be coordinated by the American Council for Collaboration in Education and Language Study (ACCELS), a non-governmental organization founded in the U.S. in 1974 to promote educational cooperation between the U.S., Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Today it has offices in five cities in Ukraine: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk. The organization also coordinates testing in all the countries of the former Soviet Union for the Education Testing Service, which includes TOEFL, GRE and GMAT testing.

The criteria for the contest, which is open to all English-language and American studies teachers in all schools in Ukraine, requires that the instructors teach one of grades 5-11 and that they have been working for at least three years.

"Three thousand applications are available through our offices in Ukrainian cities and at the Ministry of Education," explained Ivana Reed, ACCELS coordinator.

The review process will be handled by five committees located throughout Ukraine, each one consisting of nine members, three of which will be American-born expatriates and the six others native Ukrainians. "We hope to fill the U.S. positions with Peace Corps volunteers, Fulbright scholars and Community Education Project people working in Ukraine," explained Ms. Reed.

She said the winners will be "excellent teachers who make the most of what they have, not just what is available through the school's resources, which includes community involvement."