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Catch Up: Research for Lessons Learnt
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Challenge
Zambia is facing a learning crisis: although ever more learners attend school, many don’t learn. Many learners fail to acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills. These learners nonetheless progress through primary education and the gap between what learners know and what they are supposed to know based on the grade they are in increases year-after-year.
While teachers are aware of this, they stick to the curriculum as they lack the time and competences to adapt their teaching to the level of the child. Remedial teaching is needed to provide those learners with an opportunity to catch up.
Goals
Government staff provide effective mentorship and support to teachers and school leaders in government and community schools, so they can assess and teach basic
literacy and numeracy skills to grade 3 to 5 learners in the framework of remedial Catch Up lessons.
Project Partners
Approach
The KIX Research and Learning Advisor oversees research activities under the learning agenda for Zambia’s Teaching at the Right Level/Catch Up programmes. This includes working to design and manage research and evaluations applying quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method approaches
By the end of the programme
- A full cluster-randomised controlled trial (RCT) has been completed across multiple provinces, covering over 273 schools and 8025 learners.
- Baseline, two rounds of process monitoring and endline assessments have been conducted, ensuring both learning outcomes and implementation fidelity were captured.
- The role of structured continuous professional development, peer learning and non-monetary recognition in supporting teacher motivation and consistency
has been documented. - Even though many schools were in remote and hard-to-reach areas, the project kept student dropouts low, with only 11% leaving between the start and the end of the study.