Educate!’s Post

Super interesting article with reflections from my colleague Fatimah Toufiq - great example of how focusing on learner needs is also focusing on labour market needs: "Teachers who received [this] training were 19 percent more likely to use active, student-centred instruction techniques, leading to improvements in soft skills like perseverance and patience that are closely linked to workplace success. In addition, university enrollment doubled among all students and increased by 167 percent among young women." #education #skills MH&A

Economic development and labour productivity are a priority for many countries. However, in nations with weak education systems, human capital remains underdeveloped, and an overhaul of the education system often seems impossible. So how do you prepare young people for the labour market? This article sheds light on the approach taken by Rwanda to address this problem: by introducing a single, compulsory subject of entrepreneurship at the upper secondary level. Given that a significant portion of employment remains in the informal sector, Rwanda has attempted to move the education system toward interactive, student-centered learning that prioritizes labor market readiness and skills development, including transferable skills such as problem-solving, negotiation, creativity, and financial literacy.   The study of entrepreneurship is mandatory at the upper secondary level—the last three years before students go on to tertiary education or work—across the country’s schools. The goal is to equip students with skills that better align with labor market demands. A three-step approach enabled this reform to be scaled-up: i) developing the curriculum and related policy ii) training teachers and improving management iii) evaluating student performance through assessments. You can read more here:  https://lnkd.in/ePWzqkVG

📚 A must read! Excited to share insights from our partner, Educate!, who are addressing a significant challenge: supporting sustainable education reform in Africa. This Stanford Social Innovation Review article shares lessons from their achievement and details how a focused approach can be more impactful: ➡ https://lnkd.in/du5xkFea By 2035, Africa will have more young people in the global workforce than the rest of the world combined. This is why African governments are intent on reforming education systems to equip youth with the skills to create jobs and secure employment. Educate! believes that the most impactful and cost-effective way to improve an education system is to focus on meaningfully improving one subject. In Rwanda, they collaborated with the government and other partners, to co-design reforms to the compulsory school subject of entrepreneurship. The reforms are now at national scale, reaching 165,000 secondary school students across the country. In the article, Kamanda Kamiri, Boris Bulayev and Rogers Patrick Kamugisha distill their learnings around: 1) focusing on a single point of leverage, 2) aligning all actors behind that change and 3) working closely with education officials and teachers to iterate. #education #Africa

In #Ghana, improved monitoring and support by school principals and supervisors significantly increased the implementation of #DifferentiatedInstruction where students are taught at their level of learning in classrooms. In turn, student test scores jumped by one-third of a school year. Read more about this study and its promising results, conducted by IPA Ghana in collaboration with the Ghana Ministry of Education, UNICEF and researchers Sabrin Beg, Anne Fitzpatrick and Adrienne Lucas: bit.ly/ghdi1821 #IPAGhana #Education #MoreEvidenceLessPoverty

A promising approach in the field of education as we. solve the learning problem at its roots to improve the academic performance as well as grow the children's self esteem. #teachingattherightlevel

One of our Rippleworks partners, Educate! are addressing a significant challenge: supporting sustainable education reform in Africa. This Stanford Social Innovation Review article shares lessons from their achievement and how a focused approach can be more impactful:  https://lnkd.in/du5xkFea By 2035, the continent will have more young people in the global workforce than the rest of the world combined. This is why African governments are intent on reforming education systems to equip youth with the skills to create jobs and secure employment. Educate! believes that the most impactful and cost-effective way to improve an education system is to focus on meaningfully improving one subject. In Rwanda, they collaborated with the government and other partners, to co-design reforms to the compulsory school subject of entrepreneurship. The reforms are now at national scale, reaching 165,000 secondary school students across the country. In the below article, Kamanda Kamiri , Boris Bulayev and Rogers Patrick Kamugisha distill their learnings around: 1) Focusing on a single point of leverage 2) Aligning all actors behind that change 3) Working closely with education officials and teachers to iterate. #education #Africa https://lnkd.in/eWpCeT4P

VVOB and the Hempel Foundation are once again joining forces to tackle low learning outcomes in primary education across Uganda and Zambia. ✏️ Since our partnership began in Uganda in 2022, VVOB has successfully introduced the Teaching at the Right Level (#TaRL) approach, significantly boosting foundational #literacy and #numeracy skills among primary school learners. "As we celebrate the two new collaborations in Uganda and Zambia, I wish to highlight the strength of VVOB’s evidence-based foundational learning programmes and the inclusive approach to stakeholder engagement with governments and knowledge institutions," shares Anders Holm, Executive Director of the Hempel Foundation. 💬 In the new phase of our collaboration in Uganda (2024-2027), TaRL will be scaled up in Kasese district, reaching all 266 government-aided primary schools. Meanwhile, our pilot in Zambia, launching in June 2024, will be implemented in 110 schools, directly impacting nearly 25,000 Grade 2 learners and indirectly benefiting 73,000 learners in Grades 3-5. 🙌 This partnership underscores our shared commitment to enhancing #education quality on a broader scale. As Caroline Elliot, VVOB’s Country Programmes Manager in Zambia, emphasizes: "This pilot project holds immense importance in tackling the learning crisis not only in Zambia but also beyond." 🤩 Read more in the article below ⬇️ Teaching at the Right Level Africa Tom Vandenbosch VVOB in Uganda #FoundationalLearning #QualityEducation #RemedialLearning #PrimaryEducation #Uganda #Zambia

Check out what USAID CATALYZE has been up to in 2023! #educationfinance #development #zambia #privatesectordevelopment

From the statistics from #Uganda’s National Assessment of Progress in Education (#NAPE) survey report conducted in 2023 in 1,770 primary schools across the country and released on Tuesday, 13th August 2024 by Uganda National Examinations Board, it is evident that; 📖 Proficiency in numeracy and literacy in English is gradually improving but some districts, especially rural areas still have very low proficiency levels. 🏫 Just 9% of Primary Three learners in rural areas are proficient in numeracy which is lower than the national average. 🍀 58% of Primary Six learners are proficient in numeracy (an improvement from 55% in 2018), while 42.7% are proficient in literacy in English. ✅ Over half (53.9% - 50.6% boys, 57.4% girls) of P3 learners in Uganda are now proficient in Literacy in English, up from 49.9% in 2018. 💧 About 3 in 5 (57.5% - 57.5% boys, 57.5% girls) P3 learners in Uganda are proficient in Mathematics, compared to 55.2% in 2018. 🔥 Barriers to quality education like lack of learning materials, poor feeding, and limited parental involvement in a child's education are major factors contributing to poor performance in rural schools. This report expresses the need for joint efforts from both public and private sector players in addressing the gaps in the education sector, especially in lower primary classes. Eduvelop is committed to improving proficiency in numeracy and literacy in English in rural Uganda by organizing well-tailored teacher training programs focused numeracy and literacy, Early Grade Reading Programs for pupils, Establishment of Community Math Resource Centers, Community Learning Program and Parental Engagement Workshops. Our vision is a world where every child, regardless of their geographic location or socio-economic status, has access to quality education that equips them with the skills needed to thrive in the 21st century. #EducationForAll #Uganda #EducationChangesAll #LearnNow #UNEB #Eduvelop 

At the just-concluded Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) High-Level Policy Dialogue Forum in Lusaka, Zambia, I closed my remarks as a panellist on the session themed "The Role of Structured Lesson Planning and Assessment to Improve Instruction" by calling on every stakeholder to treat the education crisis in the same evidence-based manner we apply in our everyday lives. We make evidence-based decisions when choosing clothes that fit us. This decision is based on years of data collected about the clothes we wear. We also adjust our clothing choices based on new data, such as weight loss, height gain, and the elasticity of the clothes, among other factors. The logical approach in education is to train and encourage our teachers to consistently adjust and modify instruction based on evidence they gather while tracking children's progress. This doesn't have to wait until the end of the session or term. It's a continuous process of using various forms of assessment strategies to inform teaching and learning practices. It requires teachers to draw insights from learning data and integrate them into instructional decision-making. It's important to note that 'learning data' doesn't always mean data in a spreadsheet; it can be as simple as observed work or students' responses to questions. Similarly, schools should adopt strategies to teach children at the right level, drawing inspiration from the Teaching at the Right Level Africa initiative. Most importantly, governments must take ownership and make intentional efforts to track learning outcomes for children on a termly basis, focusing on key literacy and numeracy skills. This provides the government with the opportunity to adjust policies quickly, creating an ecosystem that diagnoses and heals itself, much like our approach to clothing decisions. One efficient way to do this is to use the Human Capital Africa scorecard, a low-cost tool that governments can employ to track learning outcomes through intelligent surveys across the country. These surveys assess proficiencies in literacy and numeracy among children within the school system. The Human Capital Africa scorecard provides critical insights for the government to inform policies and strategies effectively. It was my pleasure to be on the panel alongside Angelina Matsie, Minister of Basic Education, South Africa, Mary Sichangi, Edith Ng'oma of ChildFund International, Wendi Ralaingita of RTI International.