Achieving Student Centered Education for a New Tomorrow - ASCENT | 72011419RFA00006

Opportunity Information: Apply for 72011419RFA00006

The Achieving Student Centered Education for a New Tomorrow (ASCENT) opportunity is a USAID/Georgia (USAID-Tbilisi) funding solicitation for organizations that can help Georgia strengthen and sustain student-centered reforms in the early years of schooling. The award is offered as a Cooperative Agreement, which typically means USAID expects to remain actively involved during implementation through collaboration, technical input, and shared decision-making on key aspects of the work. The opportunity sits under USAID's Education programming (CFDA 98.001) and is labeled as an earmark opportunity, signaling that it aligns with a specific funding priority.

The overall purpose of ASCENT is to support the education system in putting lasting, student-centered approaches into practice in primary grades. In practical terms, this focus is about moving classrooms toward teaching methods that are more interactive and responsive to how children learn, emphasizing participation, critical thinking, formative assessment, and inclusive instruction rather than rote memorization. The intent is not a one-off training effort, but a set of changes that become embedded in everyday teaching, school leadership, and policy routines so reforms persist after external support ends.

ASCENT is structured around three main objectives that cover the full pipeline of change: current educators, future educators, and the policy environment. Objective 1 targets the people already working in schools, aiming for current primary-grade teachers and school administrators to actually implement student-centered curricula. This goes beyond awareness-raising; it points toward classroom-level adoption of student-centered lesson delivery and school-level conditions that support it, such as instructional coaching, supportive supervision, effective planning, and leadership practices that reinforce continuous improvement.

Objective 2 focuses on sustainability through pre-service preparation. It aims to ensure future teachers graduate with student-centered teaching skills and that future school administrators develop relevant instructional leadership skills. This objective implies work with teacher preparation institutions and training pathways for school leaders so that new entrants to the profession arrive ready to teach and lead in ways consistent with student-centered education. In effect, it tries to prevent a common reform problem where in-service training improves current practice temporarily, but the system keeps producing new teachers and administrators who have not been prepared to sustain those same methods.

Objective 3 addresses how decisions are made at higher levels of the education system by emphasizing evidence and data use in policy development. The goal is for educational policies to be shaped by data and evidence rather than solely by tradition or anecdote. This can include strengthening how learning outcomes and classroom practice are measured, improving the use of monitoring and evaluation findings, and creating feedback loops where results inform revisions to curriculum guidance, teacher standards, training requirements, and implementation strategies.

From an applicant standpoint, the solicitation is open eligibility (unrestricted), meaning any qualified entity may apply, including non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, private firms, or consortia, as long as they meet USAID requirements. The opportunity number is 72011419RFA00006. The posting indicates an award ceiling of $7,000,000. The original closing date listed is August 12, 2019, and the opportunity was created on June 28, 2019. The expected number of awards is not specified in the provided details, but the ceiling suggests a substantial, multi-year effort designed to work across classrooms, training institutions, and policy stakeholders rather than a small pilot limited to a handful of schools.

In summary, ASCENT is designed to help Georgia institutionalize student-centered learning in primary education by improving how current teachers and principals implement student-centered curricula, ensuring the next generation of teachers and administrators are trained in these approaches from the start, and strengthening the use of data and evidence in education policy so reforms are guided by measurable results and can be adjusted over time.

• The Georgia USAID-Tbilisi in the education sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Achieving Student Centered Education for a New Tomorrow - ASCENT" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 98.001.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2019-06-28.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2019-08-12. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $7,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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