“Nay, we can!” in education
ROI Association implemented the pilot project “Education through coaching” during 2012-2013 (www.zburd.ro), aiming at improving performance of 5 Romanian technical highschools with poor results at the final graduation (less than 20% of the students passing the examination). Most of the students of these highschools come from disadvantaged areas.
This project proves that when the teachers, students and the parents work together the results are outstanding, even when the majority of the scholars come out of under-privileged environments. The succes stories from the 5 high schools are presented in the documentary film entitled “Nay, we can!”, released in 2013: http://youtu.be/7Z6vVwey99o . The movie is meant to inspire other schools to apply the team work between teachers-pupils-parents.
Volunteer coaches worked for approximately 2 years and formed in each high school a core-team including teachers, students and parents (12-14 persons). Through meetings every 2 weeks and a team coaching process, the team members were encouraged to set up obiectives, find solutions, plan and act. The members of the school team were also volunteers. The facilitators were trained for one year and a half in the “Action, Reflection, Learning” team coaching methodology developed by Leadership in International Management, based in USA.
The 5 high schools obtained outstanding results:
- significant growth of passing the high school diploma exam (2-3 times better versus an average rise of 20% at national scale – as shown in the graph above),
- reduction of absenteeism;
- solutions for violence issues.
Also, the scholars enhanced their self-confidence and learned to work in a team. In addition, communication between teachers and pupils improved, and the parents started to get involved in school life.
Since 2014, the project „Education through coaching” is part of „Adopt a high-school” project (www.adoptaunliceu.ro), implemented by ROI Association together with two other NGOs – School of Values and New Horizons Foundation, and with the support of the Ministry of Education and the business environment. Over 20 high schools applied for this project. Up to now, two high schools benefit from this programme, with the support of the business environment, the Cummins Foundation and United Way.
In order to share their experience, the experts of ROI Association contributed to the design and delivery of trainings for over 1,300 teachers in 2014. The training courses were delivered in partnership with the Romanian Institutute of Educational Sciences and the several County School Inspectorates. In 2015, ROI Association has started to train a new team of volunteers to work in schools. As part of its commitment to contribute to education, in 2016, the Association went further and published for UNICEF the study „Non-cognitive skills development in adolescents in Romania”.
Partners: In the pilot phase, Zburd-Educatie through coaching was implemented by ROI Association (www.aroi.ro) in partenership with the Romanian Association for Coaching, Leadership in International Management from the USA and the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education from Bucharest University, with the support of the Ministry of National Education. The pilot project was based on volunteering, therefore the necessary resources were minimal. These funds were ensured by Raiffeisen Comunităti, European Program Youth in Action, individual contributors through crowdfunding and by the participation at „Nay we can!” movie screenings.
Contact person:
Simona David Crisbasanu, project manager and leader of ROI Association
(+4.0722.745.620, simona@aroi.ro )
e-mail: stup@aroi.ro / website: www.zburd.ro / www.aroi.ro
ROI Association 2013 Annual Report: http://aroi.ro/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ROI-EN-web.pdf
ROI Association is a founding member of the Romanian Coalition for Education