Improving teaching and learning in developing countries
Progress made in improving access to education has not translated into improvements in learning for many children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds and in conflict areas. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) estimates the number of children and adolescents not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics is 6 out of 10, or 617 million worldwide. The learning crisis is greatest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 85 percent of children do not reach minimum levels of learning despite being in school.
Specific features of developing country education systems, including system capacity, governance, accountability structures and political dynamics, determine whether reforms result in improved teaching and learning. The solutions are not entirely technical and must consider cultural, political and economic dimensions. This discussion paper describes the challenges facing the Global Partnership for Education’s developing country partners (DCPs) to improve learning levels and reviews existing efforts to address those challenges through global goods. It identifies remaining knowledge and innovation gaps and offers a set of areas in which the partnership could invest through the new Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) initiative.
Challenges in improving teaching and learning
A wide range of challenges at the school, household, community and national levels affect children’s learning outcomes. This discussion paper narrows this broad scope to focus on teachers and their work, and on three important sets of challenges that affect them:
- The quality of support to teacher development. This includes weak content and pedagogical knowledge and classroom skills (including instructional practices) among teachers, often because of low quality of pre- and in-service teacher training. This is related to inadequate standards and accreditation for teachers and a lack of ongoing support and coaching from head teachers and other administrative leaders.
- Teaching methods and learning materials. This includes a lack of textbooks and other learning materials; language issues, particularly around mother-tongue teaching; and teaching that is not aligned with children’s current level of understanding.
- Systems for recruiting, managing and engaging teachers. This includes attracting and retaining the most qualified individuals to the teaching profession, deploying teachers to areas of the country with the greatest need, reducing unauthorized teacher absences and maximizing instructional time, and engaging teachers in policy dialogue and reform.
How the Global Partnership for Education supports teaching and learning
The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) supports DCPs to address these challenges and has made the delivery of quality education one of the top priorities of the partnership. Its Strategic Plan 2016- 2020 (GPE 2020) names improved and more equitable learning outcomes as the first of three goals and highlights the critical role of teachers in building effective and efficient education system. This commitment is further captured in its results framework, which outlines five indicators specific to improving teaching and learning.
GPE invests in strengthened sector planning by helping countries diagnose challenges via an education sector analysis and adopt strategic lines of action in sector plans to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The GPE funding model also enables DCPs to use results-based financing to focus attention on teachers, teaching and learning in the policy dialogue, and to identify transformative strategies with evidence-based results chain to improve learning. Among the targeted improvements DCPs have embarked upon are reducing pupil-teacher ratios in the most disadvantaged regions, increasing the proportion of female teachers and delivering effective teacher development and training.
GPE’s implementation grants are a key mechanism through which the partnership supports improvements in teaching and learning, targeting a country’s specific needs. As of June 2018, all 37 active implementation grants were investing in teacher development. This includes activities such as pre-service and in-service training; mentoring and pedagogical support for teachers; policies, standards and frameworks for professional development; and the infrastructure and systems necessary to prepare and support teachers.
Teacher management, which includes activities that aim to recruit, deploy, manage and motivate teachers, is supported by half of the grants (19 out of 37). Nearly all the grants (89 percent, or 33 out of 37) also invest in relevant and quality content for instruction through the development or revision of curriculum and or learning materials. The partnership’s Global and Regional Activities (GRA) program also provided regional grants to partner organization to improve teaching and learning, with particular attention to the early grades.
Global goods, networks and innovations to improve teaching and learning
Current investments for improving teaching and learning in developing countries fall into three main categories: (1) tools, data and evidence; (2) networks; and (3) innovations.
In the area of tools, data and evidence, there are tools for system- and classroom-level analysis, tools for capacity building, data on teacher policies and their implementation and evidence from systematic review of teaching and learning interventions. Data on teachers is also gathered through surveys and as part of regional learning assessments. The World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in particular have devoted resources to multiple global goods in this area.
At least five networks focus on building capacity for improving teaching and learning. Some focus on convening teachers and other practitioners; others focus on policymakers and global actors.
Additionally, a number of innovations are showing promising results for improving teaching and learning. Some innovations focus on motivating teachers, others on adjusting teaching practices to learners’ abilities. Some work with governments to improve the teaching workforce and others work with civil society organizations to get teaching and learning materials into the hands of those who need them.
Gaps in current investments in teaching and learning and their application
The global goods, networks and innovations described in the previous section tend to focus on developing and analyzing policies for teaching and learning, with a few examples of implementation approaches. Several tools and data sources are available, but they are mostly accessible to policymakers and international actors. There is a growing international research base on effective interventions to improve teaching and learning, and models for effective classroom practices. But there is a need for more support for developing countries to extend this research, adapt it and apply it appropriately in specific contexts to inform curricula, teaching materials and teacher development.
Several international policy guides on teacher training and teacher management exist, including some specific to countries affected by fragility and conflict, but few resources to support their implementation. A number of existing networks could be leveraged for this purpose. Some interesting approaches support teachers and have been shown to accelerate improvements in learning, but few are scaled up to the national government level. In particular, there are three areas in which GPE’s KIX initiative could fund investments in teaching and learning:
- Effective sharing of evidence and good practices related to implementing teacher standards and professional development policies
- System-level approaches to aligning teaching, curriculum and learning materials
- Support for effective teacher management and engagement
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