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Teaching at the Right Level in Africa: Creating Pathways to Scale
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Challenge
Zambia is facing a learning crisis: although ever more learners attend school, many do not 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 Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach provides grade 3 to 5 children with an opportunity to develop foundational literacy and numeracy skills outside of the regular school hours, as such closing the learning gap. In Zambia, it is pointedly called the 'Catch Up' approach.
TaRL/Catch Up is a highly effective remedial teaching methodology. Catch Up results do not only show that significant increases in learning outcomes are possible; they also show that the Ministry of Education is implementing Catch Up better every year.
TaRL/Catch Up focuses on strengthening the capacity of government staff at the zonal, district and provincial levels to ensure the TaRL approach is infused in the regular activities of both schools and the Ministry of Education.
TaRL/Catch Up has three important pillars:
- Capacity development of the Ministry of Education to train, mentor and coach teachers on the TaRL/Catch Up approach; and to train mentors and school leaders so they can support teachers during Catch Up implementation.
- Continuous professional development (CPD) trajectories for teachers on the TaRL/Catch Up methodology.
- Evidence on effectiveness: Teachers are trained to assess the level of the learners, so that they can group learners by learning levels. The Catch Up learner assessment is, however, also used more widely to monitor performance by tracking learners’ progress. In the framework of the programme, ministry officials are trained to optimise data usage.
In early 2022, this project was expanded to ensure continued support to 4 Catch Up districts in Northern Province, as well as support to learning labs in Lusaka Province. Another extension includes support for Catch Up in Western Province (6 selected districts), and costs for conducting a Randomised Control Trial (RCT).
By the end of the programme
- Indirectly, the programme benefited 150,000 learners in participating schools, improving foundational literacy and numeracy outcomes through targeted remedial instruction.
- The in-service structures of the Ministry of Education in charge of professional development were strengthened to deliver training and support to teachers, mentors and school leaders in the TaRL/Catch Up methodology.
- Over 3,500 Grade 3–5 teachers were trained in learner assessment, grouping, and delivery of Catch Up lessons.
- The CPD of teachers, mentors and school leaders was institutionalised, delivered through structured trajectories consisting of training on TaRL methodology and principles, continuous mentoring support, coaching (increasingly replacing mentoring as system capacity strengthened), and targeted support for the collection, analysis and use of learner assessment data.
- School leaders and deputy school leaders were equipped to supervise implementation and support teachers through cascaded trainings and school-based CPD.
- Over 40 master trainers, 4 national master trainers, and CPD facilitators and in-service providers were equipped to provide ongoing orientation, mentoring and coaching.
- Government systems demonstrated improved data use for decision-making, including tracking learner progress and informing instructional practice.
- The Ministry of Education showed increased ownership of Catch Up, integrating it into existing structures and committing to its institutionalisation and national scale-up.
- 27 Provincial Education staff (Provincial Education Officers, principal education standards officers, standards officers, education officers, senior education officers, planners and teacher education staff), over 48 district and zonal education officers, were trained and supported to deliver, monitor and institutionalise the Catch Up approach.