PAL Network Learning Journey – World Education Blog ASER India revamped for Deeper Insights Is Learning Happening in East African Schools? ASER Pakistan: Are things getting any better? A Year Later with the PAL Network…. New Partnerships for Beekunko in Mali MIA’s Attempt: Combining Assessment with Action! Featured Blogs
PAL Network Learning Journey: Beyond Assessment to Action!
On the sparkling shores of the seaside town of Saly on the Petite Côte of Senegal, 50 ambitious education activists and innovators from 15 Global South countries convened last week to explore the next crucial stage of their learning journey at the 4th Annual PAL Network meeting.
The People’s Action for Learning Network (PAL Network) is an internationally recognized south-south collaboration whose member countries work across three continents to assess the basic reading and numeracy competencies of over 1 million children annually, in their homes, through citizen-led assessments.
A decade after launching the Annual State of Education Report in India, the widely-cited household-based assessment program will now change its parameters. While it will continue to be a national assessment carried out in homes, not at schools, ASER will focus on improving learning levels of children and creating demand for quality education from parents.
According to Director Wilima Wadhwa, a standard response to the annual report had been “Got it! Now tell us, what next?” But ASER, she points out, was not originally designed to offer solutions – it’s like a thermometer. “ASER gave us the confidence that we can do things at scale. So we are asking ourselves, can we create solutions at scale?” says Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham.
PAL Network is excited to be participating in the 60th Annual Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Conference in Vancouver, Canada this coming March. PAL Network will fully be represented at CIES. There are 9 panel discussions in total.
With over 500 sessions and 3,000 attendees, the CIES conference has become the largest and most influential event of the year for education professionals. The conference will feature pre-conference workshops, panel discussions and several days of networking and learning. Click this link to find out more about the PAL Network panel discussions.
Is Learning Happening in East African Schools? Much has been written about the failings of primary education systems in East Africa. Teachers are often lambasted for being absent from school, for being poorly motivated, and even for lacking basic knowledge about the subjects they teach. It’s not all bad: genuine successes have been registered in improving enrollment rates. But this does not appear to be enough. Even when they attend school, children don’t seem to learn very much.
Faced with these challenges, national governments and foreign aid donors regularly call for deep reforms to schooling systems to improve the quality of learning. For instance, the UK’s Department of International Development recently allocated £21 million on research to “build an understanding of education systems and how they can be transformed to accelerate learning”.
But are these concerns supported by the facts? To learn more about how Data from Uwezo is answering the question above, please click here.
ASER Pakistan: Are things getting any better?
The sixth edition of Pakistan’s largest citizen-led household based survey, the Annual Status of Education Report 2015 was launched amid much zeal and fervor in Islamabad on Thursday December 17, 2015, bringing ASER phase 1 to an end. In attendance was Minister of State for Education, Engr. Baligh Ur Rehman, among many other notable politicians and education experts. Detailed finding on effective learning and school situations in Pakistan were made public in the report.
In keeping with the spirit of its launch in March 2015, LEARNigeria continues to centre its role in improving education quality in Nigeria. As it prepares to mark its first birthday in the PAL Network, LEARNigeria has surveyed 2 Local Government Areas of Lagos and Kano. The survey involved 2451 children in 902 households. Additionally 60 schools both private and public were surveyed. The pilot process has been very instrumental in setting a groundwork for LEARNigeria not only to follow up actions but to engage stakeholders.
LEARNigeria believes that stakeholder engagement is key in creating awareness on the citizen led process in Nigeria. Eventually the organization hopes that continued public private dialogue will lead to informed policy reforms related to improving learning outcomes in Nigeria.
New partnerships for Beekunko in Mali The Beekunko team in Mali have been busy preparing for the 2016 assessment in partnership with CERIPS (Centre de Recherche de l’information de la Population et de la Santé). This is the first time that the Beekunko team will be working in close partnership with another national organization that has extensive experience in conducting household-based surveys in Mali.
The first workshop of Supervisors was held in Bamako from 18-22 January 2016, bringing together 30 participants from all over Mali for specialised training in the collection of robust and quality data during the Beekunko learning assessment. Every year, Beekunko partners take part in an extensive pre-engagement campaign in local communities. The campaign involves talking to parents and local decision makers before the assessment starts, to hold community-level discussions on the importance of measuring children’s learning. Increased parental involvement and participation, it is hoped – will put pressure on local authorities to improve sectoral development plans of each municipality to include a greater focus on children’s learning.
Founded in 2014, MIA aims to increase citizen’s participation in education through collaborative research and knowledge creation. MIA wants to work with stakeholders amongst them academia, civil society, the educational community and citizen volunteers to improve basic learning for children and young people in Mexico.
MIA is attempting to combine assessment and action in its work in Mexico. The organization presupposes that it will need a select group of stakeholders for the success of the process. Action will be achieved by the stakeholders intervening specifically in helping children improve their skills in reading and basic mathematics. MIA intends to work in schools, non-school places and also monitor education policies to attain its mission.
Other strategies that MIA will use to move from assessment to action involves using partners to generate innovations at the local level in reading, civic participation, personal healthcare etc. The key to success for MIA to achieve all these; A group of committed people!
