Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has recognized Creative Associates International, Inc.’s leadership in basic education by awarding the firm the Afghanistan Basic Education Program (ABEP).

ABEP is designed to strengthen the quality of teaching by all of Afghanistan’s primary school teachers, build the capacity and systems in the Ministry of Education (MOE) that support primary school teaching and aid in the annual printing and distribution of textbooks.

By building the ministry’s capacity to deliver quality teacher training, the five-year nearly $73 million award is destined to have lasting impact on Afghanistan’s children.

ABEP follows on the success of Creative’s implementation of the Afghanistan Primary Education Program which improved the MOE’s capacity to reform education in Afghanistan. Launched in 2003, APEP addressed Afghanistan’s education crisis through several components. Along with building the MOE’s capacity, APEP provided accelerated learning classes to nearly 170,000 over-aged students, especially girls, produced a distance learning radio teacher training program that reached thousands of teachers throughout the country, and printed and distributed 27 million textbooks.

Under ABEP, Creative will work with three international and five local implementing partners to provide an advisory and technical assistance role to the MOE, including preparing curricula for in-service and pre-service teacher training. Working with its partners, Creative will produce analyses and technical assistance activities to bring about reforms in the policies that impact the quality of teaching.

ABEP will also provide for the ministry’s longer-term needs, at the national and provincial levels, by aiding policy making, planning, budgeting, recruitment practices and methods to monitor and evaluate teachers performance.

ABEP will also focus on policies that support teachers and their professional development at the central, provincial and district levels to provide critical skills to in-service teachers with little or no training, and to improve and sustain pre-service teacher training at teacher training colleges.

The project’s third component will provide for the annual printing and distribution of textbooks.

“ABEP’s focus is to improve primary teacher quality which obviously will ultimately impact the children of Afghanistan,” said Thea C. Anderson, Creative’s ABEP project manager in Washington D.C.

Creative Associates is a 27-year-old minority women-owned professional services firm that currently works in 13 countries in addition to the United States.