Over the past two weeks, more than 40 teaching and managerial staff from the Ecological College in Chisinau have been involved in a complex program of professional development, consisting of two modules: Management of Educational Projects and Elaboration of the Strategic Development Plan of the institution.

The activity, carried out at the request of the managing director Nina Negară, took place at the institution, being facilitated by the experienced trainers – Svetlana Şişcanu and Viorica Goraş-Postică. The advantage of this training for a consistent team of managers and teachers from the same institution was through: holistic approach to continuous training, team building and well-being based on energizing psycho-emotional activities as well as exchange of experience and channeling interactive learning and application strategies into developing concrete projects, specific to the context and issues faced by students, teachers, and the whole school here and now.

The agenda of the first module included topics such as: the concept of the project; requirements for the phased drafting of the project document / form, starting with identifying problems and analyzing them, continuing with the development of the SMART model followed by activities and results, starting viable partnerships and ending with budgeting and monitoring and evaluation rigors of extra-budgetary intervention / investment projects. It has been argued that it is not easy today to find financiers for the many problems gathered in a public institution, and that writing and fundraising / fundraising work is to be intensified and monitored by the management team, with the support of the whole team.

The participatory elaboration of the institution’s Strategic Development Plan was the theme of Module 2, based on the guide, developed by the CE PRO DIDACTICA trainers (LINK), a means unique and functional didactic, appreciated by practitioners and taken as an algorithm for the next PDS update process. Among the important acquisitions highlighted by the participants, we note: the PDS structure, its elaboration in a participatory manner, the problem identification methodology, the correct formulation of the objectives, the need to develop the monitoring and evaluation plan, accompanied by appropriate measurement tools.

As a last step, natural for a training program, it was important to identify the intentions of applying the lessons learned, including: writing a project to improve the technical and material basis of the institution; to seek sources of funding for our ideas; to apply also some ideas from the course in the group of students; to write an ecological project within the chair together with the students; to draw up a project for the planning of the rest room in the home and its territory; to actively participate in the PDS review; to involve all colleagues, including Heads of Subdivisions, in drawing up the PDS; to become a person thanks to the successes they gain; to put my shoulder to the consolidation of team spirit among college teachers; to take part in courses organized by CE PRO DIDACTICA, etc.

Finally, we appreciate the interest, the positive attitude, the high degree of involvement of the participants, the openness to learning new things and the desire to mobilize to improve the quality of college education through the successful design and implementation of the projects and the PDS. Despite the year-end fatigue and reporting obligations, the learners have contributed to creating a positive atmosphere, having the certainty that it is useful to participate in such training and that all colleagues deserve to benefit from them, especially as the manager of the institution submits considerable efforts in this regard.

Viorica Goraş-Postică