Khushbakht Azizbekov, who after graduation from Khorog State University (KSU) started his professional career at School #7 of Khorog as mathematics – informatics teacher, always tried to improve his teaching by learning new skills, says the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) Office in Tajikistan.
Fortunately, School #7 of Khorog is an Aga Khan Foundation Tajikistan (AKF Tjk) Education Improvement Program (EIP) project school and Khushbakht was able to pursue professional development courses and find the support of mentors through different AKF EIP projects (STEM Improvement project for Secondary Schools, THRIVE and School 2030) during the past six years. The young teacher reportedly benefited from trainings on new interactive teaching approaches, child centered learning and the integration of mathematics learning in everyday life. The AKF EIP projects also provided teaching resources, books, ICT equipment and visual aids, which supported and boosted the young teacher`s increasing competency. Khushbakht always demonstrated enthusiasm for learning new approaches to teaching during the trainings and implementation of projects in the schools. He explains:
“At the beginning, it was hard for me to teach mathematics to schools’ students, to make the lessons interactive and fun for them. Later after participating in various courses and competitions organized by AKF Tjk EIP projects and using the resources provided, I have gained knowledge and skills on interactive and competency-based teaching approaches, effective lesson planning and developing extracurricular teaching resources for students. Hence the intensive professional development trainings and coaching helped me to achieve a great result”.
It is worth noting that Khushbakht actively participates in the events and competitions organized by AKF Tjk EIP projects and has won a first place at the regional forum competition with his best teaching practice research project on “Teaching Mathematics Interactively”.
Khushbakht has already worked for three years with AKF EIP projects as a Master trainer to deliver the professional development trainings and to develop the extracurricular teaching and learning resources on mathematics for teachers and students.
Equipped with knowledge and skills gained through different AKF Tjk courses, Khushbakht as an ambitious person was able to further develop his professional competency and participated in a “Teacher of the Year” republican competition which was held on January 27, 2022 in Dushanbe, hosted by the Ministry of Education and Sciences of Tajikistan (MoES). Among five teachers, Khushbakht with a score of 187.9 won first place and was recognized as the best teacher of 2021 in Tajikistan.
