Learning for the Left-Behind: A Much Needed Paradigm

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) session in Botswana

“If policy is not working for you, it needs to change”, remarked the deputy permanent secretary of education in Botswana. This statement rang a bell throughout the meeting as I pondered on what exactly this means for our current education systems. Whereas on one side we have lamented the gaps between policy and practice, this particular remark portrays such gaps as positive strides towards achieving a quality education and learning for all. Simply put, if it doesn’t help me reach out to every individual learner in my class, then I got all the reasons to adjust it.

The World Development Report (2018) emphasizes the role of evidence on what works and does not work to guide decision making. It also points out the value of mobilizing a strong social movement to push for education that champions “learning for all”. However, this is not attainable unless countries and their leaders make learning for all a national priority.

To demonstrate the vital role of such goodwill, the report singles out South Korea. Though torn apart by war, South Korea attained universal primary enrollment through high school. More so, the learners in South Korean schools recorded the highest learning levels on international assessments.

This begs the question, what is the recipe and how should we think through this going forward? The policy paper outlines 3 key ingredients needed to spice up the education systems and make them relevant for the populations they serve:

1. Make learning a measurable goal. Results of assessments should inform national policy choices, track progress and point out learners who are being left behind;
2. Make schools work for all children: This entails cultivating school readiness amongst learners; investing in quality workforce through quality training and mentor-ship for teachers as well as use of technology that enables such teachers to teach at the level of each child.
3. Citizen agency where all key players (government; media; entrepreneurs; teachers; parents and learners) are empowered to value and demand better learning.

From the recommendations above, it is evident that learning institutions should interpret assessment results with a “learners at risk of being left behind” lens. Such a lens would enable teachers and educators at large adapt their strategies of instruction to respond to the needs. Such a predisposition would then validate the concept of changing a policy when it doesn’t work for us.

This closely relates to the “Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL)” conference theme held in South Africa in September. Bringing together civil society organizations, government representatives, educators and donors, the conference sought to deliberate more on this noble approach of tailoring instruction to the level of learners.

TaRL, as an approach was conceived in India and has gradually garnered a global momentum as it offers simple and feasible strategies of reaching out to learners left behind. Inspired by principles of differentiation, TaRL emphasizes on;

• assessment to establish levels of performance (competencies)
• grouping by competency rather than age or grade;
• use of material and fun-based pedagogy to mediate the competency gaps
• participation of parents and communities to accelerate acquisition of desired competencies.

This approach has been adopted across countries such as Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Botswana, and Nigeria among others. Across each country, the results have been impressive pointing to the potential of this approach in reaching the farthest left behind. During the conference, government representatives from Ghana, Zambia, Botswana and Cote d’Ivore among others lauded this as an approach that perfectly advanced the aspirations of the education systems in their countries. In Kenya, for instance, the emphasis of the new curriculum is on attainment of competencies rather than recall of knowledge and facts. TaRL complements this by presenting tried out activities and approaches to accelerate attainment of literacy and numeracy competencies.

TaRL presents a paradigm shift from traditional approaches to education. As opposed to memorizing facts and formulae, TaRL breaks down concepts to vividly demonstrate the logic behind academic concepts. For instance, whereas it is prudent for learners to memorize common words, it is more prudent for such learners to be introduced to concepts of word building that they can generalize and apply when they encounter new words.

In Kenya, ziziAfrique is implementing a literacy intervention in 3 counties, Turkana, Bungoma and Tana River. Turkana County has over the years ranked amongst the bottom 10 counties as per the Uwezo assessments. Even after 8 years of schooling, 2 out of 10 children left school without having attained grade 2 literacy competencies (Uwezo, 2016). A baseline conducted across the intervention schools revealed that only 3 out of 10 children in grades 3-5 could read a grade 2 level text (ziziAfrique, 2018).

The Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) thus serves to help hasten the attainment of the foundational skills. The first phase of implementation affirmed the potential of TaRL in accelerating achievement of such competencies. After 10 days of literacy camps, the program succeeded in having 65 learners move to the Hadithi (story) level. Notably, the beginner level category reduced from 82 to 5 learners by the end of 10 days. One would wonder, what’s the magic?

It has taken an investment in terms of reading materials. Each child in the camp receives a set of individual learning materials meant to spark their curiosity and interest in reading. Commitment of the teacher assistants and support by school leadership has provided a thriving ground for such changes to occur.

Participating in the field visits and the conference in Botswana and South Africa respectively provided me with an opportunity to reflect on how ALP could further be strengthened. My key takeaways are summarized as follows;

• Education lacks its intended value for learners struggling with basic literacy. As such, ensuring that learning sessions address the individual learning needs should be the bottom line consideration by each educator.
• Rarely do school inputs alone translate into learning outcomes. Inputs need to be complemented with strong school governance systems and skilled personnel (pedagogy). In addition to investing in materials and infrastructure, skilled teachers are a must-have resource to steer the process.
• Strong process monitoring, while reducing the bottom-up reporting is vital. Data collected should be used to strengthen the delivery process. With everyone as a decision maker, teacher assistants need to have strong reflective skills so as to make use of results obtained to improve on the delivery process.
• The first step in reaching out to learners left behind is by breaking down the barrier of silence. More often than not, learners falling behind have been stigmatized and therefore come into classrooms with low esteem and confidence. For fear of ridicule, silence becomes their sole weapon. To break this wall, sessions need to be interactive, fun and coupled with dialogue, conversation and consultations.

The learning crisis is a global reality that shaped the process of defining the sustainable development goals. The crisis has been presented in 3 facets; poor learning outcomes; immediate causes such as unprepared learners; and the deeper systemic causes. In whichever form, effort should be made to avert the looming consequences of an unskilled generation of children who attended school but failed to learn. “Schooling without learning is not just a wasted opportunity, but a great injustice”, World Development Report, 2018.