NEWS

On 4 December 2015 the PEM CONSULT project team organized a kick-off event for the launching of the second Grants Scheme with a total budget of 250,000 USD. The event was targeted at a large audience of potential bidders such as representatives of key stakeholders from TVET providers, industry, social partners and government.

Details are to be found on www.iswd.ge (see also the link to the project’s facebook!).

The Purpose of the Small Grants Scheme is to fund projects that lead to the identification, development, documentation, dissemination and promotion of the uptake of good practices across the TVET sector. The projects that will be funded should:

• Increase providers’ capacities to deliver high quality industry-relevant TVET programmes;
• Ensure a greater focus of TVET provision on labour market and industry needs;
• Improve the quality and delivery of TVET programmes.

Projects supported by Small Grants funding should lead to the following results:

• Development of proposed good practice examples or strengthening of existing ones;
• Capacity building to support good practice development or strengthening, drawing on international examples;
• Documentation of developed or strengthened good practices (case studies);
• Dissemination of developed / strengthened good practices;
• Replication of identified good practices within other TVET providers in Georgia.

The expected results, outcomes and outputs of each Small Grants project should be clearly specified in grant applications and will be required to be delivered in full during the timeframe of each grant contact.

The launch event took place in Tbilisi Courtyard Marriott Hotel and was attended by more than 70 participants. The organizations and private businesses participated at the event reflected the whole range of major stakeholders and beneficiaries of the ISWD project.

The First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, Ms Ketevan Natriashvili, the Millennium Challenge Account-Georgia CEO, Ms Magda Magradze, the Millennium Challenge Corporation Resident Country Director, Ms Kateri Clement, and the PEM CONSULT Managing Director, Marita Münks, participated in the opening session of the event.

Detailed information about the STPP scheme and good practice development and replication practices were delivered by the ISWD Team: Team Leader David Handley; the National VET Expert Anastasia Kitiashvili and the Grants Scheme Manager Valentin Mitev spoke about the purpose of the grants, the embedding in national policies and about practical regulations for application. All presentations were followed by in-depth Q&A sessions.  

The PEM CONSULT team together with MCA released a press-release, announcing the launching of the STPP to main media outlets on 3^rd of December. The launching event was covered by several TV, print and online media representatives.

All interested providers and other potential grant applicants will be invited to attend Information Sessions before making the applications. The information sessions will be organized after the launching of the request for proposals with an announcement in the national media. They will be open to all interested parties to attend. All the information about the information sessions will also be made available to all interested applicants via the project’s web-site.

A first information session is scheduled to take place in Kutaisi by mid December.