Center for Learning in Practice: Background Statement
We started the Center for Learning in Practice (CLiP) in 2016 in response to the dire global need for more and better trained teachers, as well as for those who seek to improve education of all learners. With that goal in mind in 2017 CLiP established the Refugee Educator Academy (REA) at the Carey Institute for Global Good.
At that time, the population of forcibly displaced people around the world was exploding. It’s now up to about 80 million people. Many of them are children. Crowded into formal or informal camps, sleeping rough or on the move, these children have overwhelmed existing systems for educating displaced children and youth.
A shortage of teachers for displaced learners only exacerbates the trauma they are experiencing. Often, untrained parents and other members of the community try to fill the breach where access to quality, formal education is not possible. Even if they manage to find homes in new countries as refugees, asylees or simple immigrants, the children bring trauma with them to their new classrooms. Teachers in their new schools are rarely adequately prepared to meet the social-emotional learning needs of these traumatized and vulnerable children.
That’s where CLiP has stepped in. CLiP delivers online teacher training in manageable, bite-sized bits—training both established teachers and others, like parents, who need to start with the basics. They become digital colleagues with a cohort of other teachers and education specialists from whom they can get advice and learning resources. And they earn credentials as they go along.
To date CLiP has been enthusiastically received by teachers and partners including NGOs, local government ministries, and international organizations in over 20 countries around the world.
The world cannot afford more lost generations of children. Children without education. Without economic opportunity. Without hope. Our duty to provide every child with a decent education is not just a moral imperative. It’s an economic and security imperative, too. Simply put, it’s in all our interests to see that every child has access to a decent education and a life with dignity.
Here are some facts and sources if you’d like to learn more about CLiP:
- By 2030, an additional 68.8 million teachers will need to be recruited just for primary and secondary schools.[1][2]
- CLiP is active in approximately two dozen countries around the world, including the United States. Go to https://clip.careyinstitute.org/home/refugee-educator-academy/ for a map, videos, and other information.
- A recent evaluation by RTI International – an independent, non-profit research institution – found that teachers and others participating in CLiP training were very enthusiastic about their results. CLiP has “had a significant impact on teaching practices, beliefs, and preparation to work with refugee students and their families, even for the most experienced educators working with refugee students,” RTI reported. [3]
Gareth Crawford, President and CEO
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[1] http://uis.unesco.org/en/blog/closing-teacher-gap-almost-69-million-teachers-needed
[2] https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/teachers#1
[3] https://clip.careyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/RTI-report-wq.pdf