Competition Now Open! Deadline to Apply: March 15, 2021
 Did you know that there is a Department of Education grant that provides overseas training, research, and curriculum development experiences for U.S. teachers, faculty, and students?
The International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) office at the U.S. Department of Education is pleased to announce the opening of the competition for the fiscal year 2021 Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA) Program.
The GPA Program provides grants to institutions of higher education, state education agencies, and private, nonprofit educational entities that organize programs for K–12 teachers, college students, and faculty to engage in short-term or long-term overseas projects focused on training, research, and curriculum development in modern foreign languages and area studies. GPA short-term projects include seminars, curriculum development, and group research or study. GPA long-term projects support overseas programs that focus on advanced intensive language training, the humanities, or social sciences.
IFLE expects to make 25 new awards totaling approximately $3.7 million under the FY 2021 GPA competition. The application is now available at www.grants.gov. The deadline to submit an application is March 15, 2021.
Please refer to the official Federal Register notice for detailed information about the FY 2021 competition.
Application Technical Assistance Webinar: Stream on YouTube
IFLE prerecorded two technical assistance webinars to help institutions and nonprofit educational entities learn more about the 2021 GPA short-term and long-term programs and the application process. The webinars provide guidance about the competition priorities, allowable budget costs, impact and evaluation, and the Performance Measures Form, in addition to other application components.
The presentations are now available to stream on YouTube at your convenience:
If you have questions about the program or application process, please email them to Cory Neal at GPA@ed.gov.
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Group Project Abroad to Tanzania Plants Seeds for Robotics and Future Technology
 The article below was edited and adapted from an article on the University of Georgia's College of Mary Frances Early Education website by Kristen Morales.
Robots are a way to connect student learning with a country's economic success, says University of Georgia (UGA) associate professor of career and information studies John Mativo. A 2019 Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad program led by Mativo may be helping to achieve that goal in Tanzania.
UGA received a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad grant to bring UGA graduate students and faculty to Tanzania over the summer to learn more about the Tanzanian education system and to introduce a robotics curriculum to faculty at Mwenge Catholic University in Moshi, Tanzania, and to teachers at two rural elementary schools. The trip also planted a seed for additional educator trainings and partnerships to develop sustainable energy production as part of a larger robotics curriculum.
Mativo said the idea was to empower Tanzanian educators to train others in their country and grow the robotics curriculum by using lesson plans developed by faculty in the UGA College of Education and translated into Kiswahili. These types of local projects start small but can have large-scale and long-lasting economic impacts for the country as a whole. According to Mativo, "Tanzania is a large country and it has a lot of natural resources, but they have very little in place in terms of technology infrastructure and manufacturing. So, we're looking at automation, which you can't do without coding, and you can't do without robots. This is a larger plan to try and help them achieve that."
The trip included Mativo; Robert Branch, professor in the department of career and information studies; Lioba Moshi, director of UGA's African Studies Institute; and 11 graduate students—some from UGA and some from colleges across Georgia—who assisted with teaching the robotics lessons. The experience in Tanzania builds off Mativo's research experience in robotics, alternative energy sources, and curriculum development. Last year he was part of a team conducting similar work in Honduras, where educators are now expanding the UGA-developed robotics curriculum in rural schools. At UGA, his courses cross boundaries between education, engineering, and alternative energy production, challenging students to consider new solutions for rural areas or developing nations.
Before the visit, neither the Tanzanian university nor the schools had robotics programs. But lessons in robotics combine mathematics and science concepts and apply them to real-world scenarios. "For example, you can use ideas in physics, like Newton's Law and acceleration, as well as kinetics, which is when you add a force to a motion," Mativo said. "When you put this together, the robots integrate all of the above. And the students can have fun and see the relevance of the subject matter together." A portion of the trip also included a stop at an energy lab, where Mativo and his team began working on a plan to integrate energy production into the curriculum. This was particularly relevant as the two elementary schools in the program did not have electricity. "Because we can say all we want to say about robots, but if we don't have energy to power them, we have nothing," added Mativo. "So, we think it's a good package where not only do the students learn about coding and information, but they also learn to take energy from alternative means."
For now, both the university faculty and the elementary teachers have their own set of robot kits—eight at each elementary school and another 16 kits spread out among departments and the library at Mwenge Catholic University. "It was a very good success, I think. Our aim was not only to begin, but to empower the team in Tanzania so they can continue the work without us. And that's our goal—for them to not be dependent on us. We want them to be independent and prosper."
Current GPA Grantee Institutions and Projects Abroad
 Explore our Google map of FY 2020 IFLE grantees to learn more about the institutions that are currently funded under the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program. Discover some of the projects being implemented on campuses all across the country that are strengthening international and foreign language education for all!
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