Just Footprints in the Sand? Questioning Sustainability of an IRA International Project

Volunteers from the International Reading Association (IRA) participated in the teacher education component of Macedonia's Secondary Education Activity, an initiative to reform vocational/technical education (VET), funded from 2004 to 2008 by USAID. Volunteers offered professional development to VET teachers using a trainer-of-trainers model, designed to create more interactive classrooms characterized by critical thinking and collaboration. The three authors--the initial lead volunteer, a Fulbright scholar, and a project participant--assess the sustainability of the component's goals by examining the interactions during project implementation of potential Macedonian change agents, including its Ministry of Education, within the context of institutional stability/change and power relationships. They also report findings from a postproject survey of project participants. While the authors identify political, social, and economic structural weaknesses that hampered widespread sustainability of project goals, they also note important positive effects on certain teachers who participated in IRA's professional development component.