Project “Happy School” launched in Uzbek public education system

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Ministry of Public Education in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) organized three day training, which is conducted on the UNODC program “A strong family”, which is aimed at improving the work with schoolchildren and their families, development of socio-psychological life skills, increasing the pedagogical competence of public education specialists in matters of effective charity with parents, and also formulated the concept of the project “Happy School”.

The event also marked the expansion of the Strong Family program at the republican level, the press service of the Ministry of Public Education said.

To participate in the project "Happy School" in each region of our republic one pilot school was selected. Psychologists and teachers from 14 schools arrived in Tashkent to attend a training seminar on teaching modern psychological and pedagogical technologies for working with adolescents and their parents. Specialists are faced with a difficult task - to learn to inspire teachers, students of schools and their parents, to fill their work, study and life with happiness. It is expected that the selected pilot schools will become the center of training and expansion of the “Happy School” project and the “Strong Family” program.

If at the first stage of the project “Happy School” pilot schools were identified, then at the second stage participants of this event were selected - 70 specialists from these schools. The seminar was led by international and national psychological trainers.

During the workshop, participants discussed the creation of “Happy Schools” and improved their skills and knowledge in such matters as the right approach to promoting mutual respect, good behavior, as well as the formulation and achievement of goals, adherence to the rules of adolescents and the prevention of acts of crime and abuse, violence among adolescents, the fight against bad habits (alcohol use, smoking, drug addiction), improving the psychological health of the family, etc.

After gaining knowledge and skills during the workshop, the specialists will return to the pilot schools for 7-week trainings based on the Strong Family program for vulnerable families and teenagers with problematic behaviors. It should be noted that over the past two years, the UNODC program “Strong Family” was successfully implemented in 19 schools in the city of Tashkent and showed positive results.

At the same time, every Saturday, within the framework of the “Day of Self-Development”, the trained specialists of the pilot schools will share with colleagues all over the country their experience and knowledge about stress tolerance, teamwork, work with young people.

It is important to note that teachers will receive teaching materials (developing modules) through the Telegram channel @maktabpsixolog every Friday. Thus, selected teachers from pilot schools will be able to regularly put into practice the knowledge gained during the three-day seminar, and, more importantly, improve their skills during the discussions at Saturday training sessions.

At the final stage of the initiative, a roadmap for expanding the Happy School project will be developed, following the implementation of which, Happy Schools will be created in each district / city of Uzbekistan, on the basis of which cascading 3-day ToT trainings will be held (training of trainers for coaches).