Four Sides of the Same Coin: Facets of EGR Material Development and Delivery in Afghanistan

Group Submission Type: Panel Session

Proposal

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s positive trajectory to improving its education indicators since 2002 is widely acknowledged. With the support of its Development Partners (DPs) and of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Afghanistan has established over 13,000 new schools. The number of children in school has risen by almost nine times with 39% of them girls. A third of its teachers in General Education are women with female teachers currently accounting for over 60% of graduates from Teacher Training Colleges. New strategies, such as Community Based Education (CBE) have spread education for millions of children to remote villages, where the opportunity to go to school has never reached before. Education has become a vital pathway to participation in the future of the nation and to Afghanistan’s stability and democracy. (NESP III, 2017-2021). Afghanistan acknowledges that at the heart of its strategy to improve the relevance and quality of learning is comprehensive, evidence-based curriculum reform and has developed a five-year curriculum improvement program.
This panel will explore the development of Afghanistan’s recently piloted early grade reading (EGR) curriculum as a part of this national effort in curricular reform from four critical aspects: USAID’s commitment to supporting educational improvement in Afghanistan, the Afghan Ministry of Education’s (MoE) vision of the final product, and Creative Associates International (Creative)’s process to develop these materials in record time and ensure delivery to schools and into the hands of children. Together the panel will give the complete picture of the process and the ingredients it took to make the material development and distribution a success in Afghanistan.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Alim Ghafary, US Agency for International Development (USAID)

Individual Presentations

• Building critical foundations of education reform through evidence-based reading materials for the early grades - Alim Ghafary, US Agency for International Development (USAID)

• Ministry of Education, Afghanistan: Overlaying peace building, culture, and religion in EGR material development in two languages - Mohammad Ibrahim Shinwari, Afghanistan Ministry of Education

• Collaboration, learning, and adaptation in the development of teaching and learning materials - Mamdouh Fadil, Creative Associates International and University of Sussex - UK

• A textbook’s journey through Afghanistan: From printer to schools to students - Catherine Johnson, Creative Associates International, GIS Technology Associate

Discussant

• Susan Ayari, Creative Associates International