The Tusome Kenya Experience: Learning to Incorporate A Focus on Pre-Service

• In Event: The Role of Pre-Service Education in Producing and Perpetuating (In)Equalities:The Case of Early Grade Reading (Part ONE)

Proposal

In recent years, a burgeoning emphasis on improving literacy outcomes in developing countries has primarily resulted in investing in short term, in-service teacher professional development in early grade reading. The Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity has not been exempt from this phenomenon. Tusome is being implemented in each of Kenya’s more than 22,600 public and low cost primary schools, and supports more than 2.45 million Grade 1 and 2 children every year. Tusome is designed to dramatically and quickly improve literacy and numeracy outcomes at scale, building on previous pilot research utilizing rigorous randomized controlled trial designs.

However, despite the scale at which Tusome seeks to improve early grade reading, the original program design placed limited emphasis on integrating training in the teaching of early grade reading into pre-service curricula. While this was partly because of a lack of data about the capacity of the pre-service institutes- (the Primary Math and Reading Initiative that preceded Tusome activity did not evaluate the ability of pre-service teacher training to do support large-scale change in teacher preparation)-the fact remained that Tusome at the outset was yet another program that planned for significant investments in in-service professional development, without planning for similar levels of technical or financial support to pre-service teacher training.

This presentation shares with the audience how the experience of implementing Tusome nationwide while ignoring pre-service training was relatively short-sighted. In Kenya, all prospective teachers studying at Primary Teacher Training Colleges (PTTCs) complete practicums in primary schools. During these practicums, they are expected to implement the techniques for literacy instruction that they have been taught at the PTTCs, (if any). When Tusome became a nationwide program, the result at the school level was that teachers assigned to complete practicums in Classes 1 and 2 were being asked to do two irreconcilable things; teach reading using the Tusome materials and techniques, while simultaneously deliver Kiswahili and English lessons by following anything they might have been taught about literacy instruction at the PTTCs. This was a pedagogical crisis where the Ministry of Education had to step in and clarify how Kiswahili and English should be taught in the first two grades of school. And they did; they determined that teacher trainees from the PTTCs could not be assigned to perform practicums in either Class 1 or 2. The unfortunate upshot of this was that younger, potentially more enthusiastic, and possibly more adaptable teaching staff just entering the profession were barred from teaching in the classrooms Tusome supported, where having teachers open to implementing new techniques and using new materials would have been the most necessary for children’s reading success.

After a certain amount of dialogue and further discussion, the MoE decided, in 2015, to authorize a national training of PTTC Kiswahili and English lecturers and Deans on the use of the Tusome methods and materials. This presentation describes the design of this training, the response of the PTTC lecturers, and critically, the response of the entire system to the new ability of lecturers to embed Tusome instructional programs to their courses at PTTCs. The paper will also present the current status of pre-service initiatives in Tusome, including pilot programs designed to support the ability of the practicum stage of the training to embed the Tusome instructional methodology. Recommendations on the design of other literacy and numeracy initativies that could be undertaken at PTTCs with long-term benefits on the teaching and learning of literacy and numeracy are also given, with particular attention to how to structure those initiatives so that they remain feasible for pre-service structures operating with modest human and financial resources to prepare the teachers of tomorrow.

Author

• Benjamin Piper, RTI International