Work plan

The PIs plan to document the traditional church education as currently practiced at the following 12 monasteries and churches, selected on the basis of the high number of students, the integrity of curriculum (all stages offered since a long period of time), presence of female traditional scholars and students, and active school life:

- Shoa (2): Däbrä Libanos, Taʾǝka nägäśt bäʾata läMaryam

- Gojjam (4): Baḥər Dar Śǝllase, Č̣ägode Ḥanna, Gwǝndä Wäyn, Zarʾa Mikaʾel

- Gondar (5): Gondär Bäʾata Maryam, Betlehem, Gondär Lǝdäta Maryam, Gondär Mädḫane Aläm, Däbrä Bǝrhan Sǝllase

- Tigray (1): Dabra Abbay

First, all techniques and practices shall be documented by means of audio and video recordings, that shall be stored in a project-specific database, accompanied by extensive metadata describing each practice. Interviews with the priests and students at various stages of education will be conducted to document the precise practices they may have experienced. Transcripts of the most important oral texts shall be also provided.

Second, all the manuscripts used in the school system in these locations will be identified. For them, a thorough preservation survey shall be carried out to evaluate the state of each and every manuscript and to single out those in need of conservation measures. The degree of the necessary intervention shall be also determined at this stage; if necessary, preservation measures shall be carried out in situ. Stable manuscripts shall be documented through digital photography immediately; the manuscripts that are deteriorated too far shall be stabilized by the restoration measures first.

Master copies of the schools will be given a high priority during the documentation.

The manuscripts shall be next scientifically described; core texts shall be additionally transcribed to complete the metadata descriptions. The descriptions and texts shall be made available online for further research.

It is expected that between 10 and 25 manuscripts per site, used at different levels of the school system, shall be digitized and described (up to 200 manuscripts on the whole), in addition to up to 10 hours of digital audio and video materials.

The approximate schedule of the project is provided below:

Year		Activity
YEAR I (Oct 2021 - Sept 2022)	4 months	Enrolment of staff; distribution of tasks; preparatory visits to the institutions involved; evaluation of quantities of materials; first database set up; training in digitization and digital description (encoding) of data
	2 weeks	Field Work I : visit to the monastery of Däbrä Libanos, Taʾǝka nägäśt bäʾata läMaryam
	3 months	Processing of the field work results (evaluation of the data, producing digital manuscript descriptions, conservation survey and report, metadata describing audio and video files, transcribing relevant texts)
	2 weeks	Field Work II : Baḥər Dar Śǝllase, Č̣ägode Ḥanna, Gwǝndä Wäyn, Zarʾa Mikaʾel
	4 months	Processing of the field work results (evaluation of the data, producing digital manuscript descriptions, conservation survey and report, metadata describing audio and video files, transcribing relevant texts)

YEAR II (Oct 2022 - Sept 2023)	2 weeks	Field Work III : Zur Amba and Betlehem
	2 months	Processing of the field work results (evaluation of the data, producing digital manuscript descriptions, conservation survey and report, metadata describing audio and video files, transcribing relevant texts)
	1 month	Field Work IV : Gondär Bäʾata Maryam, Betlehem, Gondär Lǝdäta Maryam, Gondär Mädḫane Aläm, Däbrä Bǝrhan Sǝllase
	2 months	Processing of the field work results (evaluation of the data, producing digital manuscript descriptions, conservation survey and report, metadata describing audio and video files, transcribing relevant texts)
	2 weeks	Field Work V : Dabra Abbay
	2 months	Processing of the field work results (evaluation of the data, producing digital manuscript descriptions, conservation survey and report, metadata describing audio and video files, transcribing relevant texts)
	3 months	Selecting and commenting audio and video fragments for publishing/sharing/editing Harmonization of the metadata in the database concerning texts, manuscripts, and teaching practices, in order to produce a final monographic report
	1 month	Finalization of results; submission of the final monograph for publication Final workshop to disseminate the results