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Catch Up

A national assessment of literacy and numeracy of primary school students in 2014 brought to light some disconcerting figures on learning outcomes: nearly 1 in 7 grade 2 learners were unable to read a single word in their local language, and 30% of Grade 5 learners were illiterate with poor math skills. One of the underlying reasons for this learning challenge was the size of class groups. Large classrooms contained large variations of learning levels. Learners who were not progressing never had the chance to catch up in big heterogeneous groups. These pupils are mostly vulnerable to demotivation and eventual dropout, negatively impacting their future.

 

Given this background, the Ministry of Education (MoE) was keen to implement programmes to address these huge learning gaps. After a scan, the MoE identified Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) as having the potential to address some of the challenges learners face during their foundational years, given its focus on grades 3, 4 and 5 and literacy and numeracy skills. Catch-Up is a contextualised version of TaRL an evidence-based remedial education programme originally developed by Indian NGO Pratham. With the support of J-PAL, Innovations for Poverty (IPA), Pratham, UNICEF, USAID and VVOB Zambia, the government piloted 'Catch Up' in eighty schools in 2016. Two different models of TaRL were tested in the Catch-Up pilot, an intense one-month boot camp, and a daily programme running over 2 terms, for just one hour for both numeracy and literacy. After the successful completion of the pilot and the encouraging results, the Ministry identified its preferred model: one hour during the school day for two terms. During this time teachers regrouped children in grades 3, 4 and 5 based on performance instead of age or grade and focused on basic literacy and numeracy skills, transitioning them across the 4 levels of competence by making use of a very quick and easy assessment tool.

 

After the pilot, the Ministry supported to scale Catch Up to approximately 1,800 schools over the following three years. The project 'Teaching at the Right Level in Africa: Creating Pathways to Scale' in Zambia was funded by USAID and coordinated by J-PAL Africa. VVOB and UNICEF provided technical support for the scale-up, with VVOB operating as a capacity developer of government staff.

 

The Catch-Up Programme is now being implemented in 4, 894 primary schools, approximately a third of all primary schools in 8 out of 10 Provinces in Zambia and has reached 736, 749 Grade 3-5 learners. This is now the official remedial programme of Zambia and a national scale is the target of MoE. The sustainability of the intervention lies in the MoE and its decentralised structures taking up the lead in the coordination and implementation of the programme. The scale of Catch-Up has been the result of a solid partnership between a variety of funding and technical partners that have supported MoE in the various stages: UNICEF Zambia, J-PAL South Africa and Pratham (now TaRL Africa); VVOB, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Co-Impact, USAID Development Innovation Ventures, The LEGO Foundation and the Belgian Development Cooperation (DGD). These partnerships will be instrumental for its further national scale. 

IT'S PLAY

Amidst increasing pre-primary school enrolments in Zambia, Rwanda and Uganda, there is a tendency towards more academic forms of Early Childhood Education (ECE). Driven by the desire to prepare children for primary school leads to an ECE provision that is teacher centred, fosters rote learning and does not lead to children's holistic development. Often misunderstood, sometimes even mistrusted, using Learning through Play (LtP) in ECE provides children with much better chances to a good head start. Grafted on this desire to prepare children for primary school, the IT'S PLAY (Improving Teaching Skills on Playful Learning for Africa's Youngest) project is aimed at strengthening LtP in ECE by introducing playful learning for emergent literacy and numeracy development. Not only does such an approach tap into the motivation of teachers, parents and other stakeholders to see children advance in literacy and numeracy from an early age, it also provides a clear focus and hands-on approach to build teachers' play facilitation skills.

 

Using an innovative approach to Teacher Professional Development (TPD) as an entry point - one that couples high quality descriptions of playful learning activities with support to teachers on child observation and self-reflection - IT'S PLAY aims for change at different levels of the ECE systems. IT'S PLAY is adopting a similiar approach in all three countries namely:

  1. Integrating Learning through Play (LtP) into government ECE policy and instruments,
  2. Strengthening the capacity of in-service TPD providers on LtP
  3. Supporting TPD providers to train and coach 1,600 teachers and 
  4. Building awareness of key stakeholders like school leaders and parents.

IT'S PLAY will reach 53,000 young children directly, benefitting many more thanks to system level change. IT'S PLAY is funded by The LEGO Foundation.