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Implementation Research at the Middle Tier
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Challenge
The Catch Up programme is Zambia’s national remedial education initiative based on the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) methodology, reaching more than 900,000 learners and 20,000 teachers across the country to date. The programme has shown positive results in improving foundational learning outcomes. In Zambia, Catch Up works with learners in Grades 3–5 who are behind in foundational literacy and numeracy, grouping them by level rather than grade and using targeted instruction so they can catch up.
Led by the Ministry of Education (MoE), Catch Up is supported by VVOB, TaRL Africa, UNICEF and delivered by government teachers, with coordination by Provincial and District Education Offices. At this regional level, Zonal In-Service Coordinators (ZICs) support teachers through school visits and use of monitoring data. Although Catch Up has demonstrated strong improvements in foundational literacy and numeracy, ensuring that it is applied at the same high level nationwide remains a challenge: logistical constraints often limit Zonal In-Service Coordinators (ZICs) visits to once a year, with follow-up largely relying on informal phone calls and WhatsApp messages focused on compliance rather than instructional improvement. As a result, teachers do not always receive timely, structured feedback on their classroom practice. There is a need for mentoring approaches that are affordable, scalable and strengthen the quality of teaching while fitting within existing government systems.
Goals
Teachers receive more frequent and higher-quality instructional support, allowing them to deliver Catch Up lessons more effectively. Staff at the Ministry of Education benefit from a practical, evidence-based mentoring approach that can be expanded through existing government structures to strengthen foundational learning across the country.
Our Partner
- Ministry of Education (MoE)
Approach
Together with MoE staff, this project will co-create blended mentoring models and explore the best way to balance remote and in-person mentoring.
- In Phase 1, a participatory case study will be conducted in Kafue District, Lusaka Province. Teachers, school leaders, the District Resource Centre Coordinator (DRCC) and all six district ZICs will work together. During co-creation workshops, their experiences will be central to identify mentoring challenges, role expectations, and promising mentoring models. In consultation with technical staff at the MoE, they will select two mentoring models for testing based on scalability and testability.
- In Phase 2, the prototype models will be refined based on feedback received during ZICs' training on the models and quick reviews by a sample of MoE district staff. The first prototype model developed in Phase 1 will introduce structured remote mentoring, where teachers share lesson plans via WhatsApp and receive timely, targeted feedback from ZICs using existing Catch Up tools and communication channels.
- Phase 3 will involve two rounds of A/B-testing of the models in the Lusaka districts that were not part of the case study. Before the second round, the mentoring models will be refined using data from the first round. Teachers will take part in surveys before and after the models, and ZICs will be interviewed about the mentoring models’ impact, appeal and potential improvements. Diary surveys around the ZICs’ experiences will capture “mentoring as it evolves”. To promote contextualisation and data ownership, the results will be co-interpreted with the ZICs from Kafue District.
By the end of the programme
- ZICs will have tested and refined practical approaches for combining remote and face-to-face mentoring of teachers.
- Teachers will have benefited from more regular instructional support focused on improving Catch Up lesson quality.
- District and provincial education officers will have evidence on the effectiveness, feasibility and cost of different mentoring approaches.
- The Ministry of Education will have an evidence-informed mentoring model that can be integrated into existing support systems and scaled through the national Catch Up programme.
- VVOB and education partners will gain insights into how middle-tier support can strengthen foundational learning at scale.