Teacher Retraining Procedure Approved: What Has Changed

The Deputy Minister of Education, Culture, and Sports, Zhanna Andreasian, wrote on her Facebook page: "During today’s government meeting, the revised procedure for the retraining of teachers subject to periodic certification was approved, allowing us to resume the processes of teacher retraining and compulsory certification.

What has changed: The administrative process has been significantly digitized. All necessary documents will be uploaded to the Education Management Information System by the institution, and relevant notes will be made in the electronic personal file of the teacher subject to certification, indicating that they are subject to certification by May 1 of that year. Based on this, lists of teachers subject to certification will be formed. The process for submitting corresponding documents to the ministry after retraining has also been digitized, which will again be done through the Education Management Information System by uploading the relevant data.

The process becomes more flexible for teachers: As I mentioned, from now on, not only retraining organizations but also courses, including online ones, are guaranteed. Furthermore, the courses may be held before the set deadline for periodic certification within a year. This means that if a teacher participates in any course from the guaranteed series within the previous year, they can automatically accumulate credits for that course and no longer need to participate in additional retraining concerning it before the subsequent certification.

A teacher has the opportunity to independently accumulate credits even after being certified—up to the next certification—following the same logic. If a teacher has paid for a course participation in the previous phase, the educational institution will reimburse their paid amount based on the presented receipt, but not more than what the state has set for that component of retraining.

The process becomes more participatory for the teacher: Unlike the previous procedure, a tripartite agreement will be signed with the retraining organization, where the teacher will be a party to the agreement. The school must choose the retraining organization considering the opinions and suggestions of the teachers. Moreover, in the framework of the guarantee system for organizations, it has already been stipulated that after each retraining, teachers will evaluate the organizations based on the following four criteria: content and quality, preparedness of the trainers, quality of organization, and usefulness for their future activities. Each criterion has a maximum score of 5 points. If an organization accumulates less than 10 points overall, it may remain off the list of guaranteed organizations."