Haigazian University’s Education Department partnered with UNESCO Office in Beirut, through the newly founded Teacher Education Research Group (TERG), in the organization of a Regional Conference on “Quality and Innovation in Teacher Professional Development: Issues and Challenges”. The Conference was within the context of UNESCO’s Education 2030 “Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education” and was under the patronage of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Lebanon. The event took place on December 14th and 15th, 2017, at the UNESCO Office in Beirut and was attended by a number of representatives from Ministries of Education in the Region, policy makers, teacher education researchers, practitioners, delegates of UN and regional organizations, resource people and guests.
TERG is a network of researchers and academics affiliated with the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS), Haigazian University, The Lebanese American University (LAU), the Lebanese University (LU) and the UNESCO Office in Beirut, Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States (UNESCO Beirut). TERG was founded in 2015 with a view to promote research on initial and continuous teacher education in Lebanon and the Arab Region (see also www.arabtpd.org).
As co-founding member of TERG, the Chair of the Faculty of Social & Behavioral Sciences at Haigazian University, Dr. Hagop Yacoubian, contributed to a panel presenting the rationale for the newly founded TERG through a paper entitled, “Status of Teacher Education in Lebanon: A Critical Evaluation of the Macro-Context”. In his speech Dr. Yacoubian highlighted on teaching and teacher education as scholarly endeavors, stressing on the importance of professionalization of teaching in Lebanon and the Arab Region. He added that “in today’s capitalistic era, we need to revisit our collective professional identity: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we heading to?”. He viewed the role of TERG in contributing to research, the development of research-based policies, activism, and educational reform.