Today BP and its co-venturers have presented 19 new agricultural textbooks and respective teaching materials developed and published in support of enhancing agricultural vocational education in Azerbaijan.
BP reports that the project scope included developing new teaching methodology and up-to-date textbooks for four new agricultural occupations – crop production, agriculture machinery, fruit growing and vegetable specialist.
The project is part of BP and its co-venturers’ contribution to the country’s efforts to upgrade the agricultural vocational education framework and raise the efficiency of the agricultural sector. It has been implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and is specifically focused on raising the quality of the agricultural vocational training in the country.
“We hope the new books and teaching materials will be very helpful in training the new generation of farmers. The teaching of the new occupations will now use the new textbooks written by national experts and agricultural scientists who are well familiar with the local agricultural conditions and environment. We are very much pleased to have combined our efforts with those of the Ministry of Education to benefit the rural communities and ultimately the country’s agricultural sector. The way the new occupations will be trained by using the new modular approach and methodology is sure to be a breakthrough in upgrading the country’s agricultural vocational education,” – said Gary Jones, BP’s Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.
The project scope also included the delivery of nine master-classes by the authors of the text books for the students, teachers and trainers of the vocational schools in Gabala, Ismayilli and Gakh.
The project, which was implemented by the British Council, was delivered in two phases – Phase 1 September 2016 – September 2017 and Phase 2 – September 2017 – September 2018. In total some 9,000 copies of the new textbooks and teaching materials have been published.
The total cost of the two phases is more than AZN 463,000.