Zimbabwe and UK governments choose EDT to lead social and emotional learning initiative on TEACH programme

This decision reflects the impact we have already made through delivering the teacher professional development component of TEACH, and our work on school inspections. 

The SEL programme is being piloted on behalf of MoPSE across 18 districts in Manicaland, Mashonaland Central, and Matabeleland South provinces. It aims to build capacity at all levels of MoPSE and will engage teachers, school leaders, and cluster chairpersons. As consortium lead, EDT will be responsible for programme quality, logistics, communications, monitoring and evaluation; the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative (REPSSI) Zimbabwe and Think Equal will provide technical support. The project aligns with Zimbabwe’s heritage-based curriculum – which aims to produce citizens with the relevant skills, applied knowledge, values and dispositions for national development – and will run until June 2026. 

The SEL component of TEACH will focus on psychosocial support, wellbeing, social justice and mental health, incorporating 25 skills and competencies in total. It will equip pre-school children in the Manicaland and Matabeleland provinces with foundational values and competencies to help them advance in their education and address societal challenges – qualities such as empathy, self-esteem and respect. This groundbreaking new work will build upon EDT’s extensive contextual experience in Zimbabwe, and help us develop teachers’ and pupils’ soft skills as well as their hard skills. 

Quoted in an article in The Herald, Mr Taungana Ndoro, MoPSE’s Director of Communications and Advocacy, said the programme will “make [the pupils] people of integrity, such that when they grow up, they are able to use their skills in other areas to the benefit of the socio-economic transformation of the nation.” 

Find out more about the TEACH programme here.