Dr. Tassew Zewdie is the Chief of Party of the Basic Education Activity (BEA), which works with private and nongovernmental pre-primary and primary schools to ensure access to high-quality, inclusive early childhood education opportunities and learning materials for the most vulnerable and marginalized Palestinian children in kindergarten through grade 6 in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Tassew has spent the past 30-plus years designing and implementing national and international development programs in Africa and, recently, in the Middle East. He has been working with Creative since April 2007. He has managed several projects funded by USAID focusing on system building and strengthening, capacity building, access, quality and equity of basic education, gender, out-of-school education, early grade reading, and education in emergencies. Tassew served as the Project Director for the Health, Education and Reconciliation project in South Sudan and the Tanzania 21st Century project and served as the Chief of Party for Read to Succeed in Zambia and READ II in Ethiopia.
Before joining Creative, Tassew worked with CARE International as Deputy Chief of Party and Chief of Party in South Sudan from 2002–2007 and USAID Ethiopia as a Senior Development Specialist, overseeing the Mission’s education portfolio from 1995-2002. Before joining the development world, he was a primary school teacher and a teacher trainer at a teacher training college. He served as Assistant Professor of Education at Addis Ababa University.
Tassew holds a Ph.D and a Master’s degree in education from Panjab University in Chandigarh, India and a Bachelor’s degree in education from Bahir Dar College of Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.