Catalysing locally-rooted education solutions to improve holistic learning outcomes in Pakistan and Kenya.

• In Event: Co-creating evidence from the bottom up: The Schools2030 approach to understanding what works in raising holistic learning outcomes.

Proposal

The COVID-19 pandemic, accompanied by global lockdowns and the deepening of an existing learning crisis, is predicted to have detrimental and long-lasting effects on access and learning globally. The pandemic has only further reinforced the holistic nature of human development and the necessity to adapt teaching and learning processes accordingly. Along with lags in academic learning, COVID-19 has also had larger ramifications, both emotional and social, for children of all ages. There is an exigency for non-academic skills, including life skills, to be incorporated in education so children and adolescents can navigate through future crises that the world may face. The Schools2030 research has been launched at the time of the great disruption by COVID-19 pandemic when 1.6 billion children were affected by school closures globally.

Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi in Pakistan and Zizi Afrique in Kenya will be conducting research on Schools2030 intervention across 25 schools and 2 youth centres. We are interrogating the interplay between the academic and the non-academic facets of learning that co-exist in open systems and layered contexts. Through our research we deploy methodologies that will aptly bring us closer to the reality of schools/communities and political economy of learning in our contexts. The two-fold central objectives of our research are to 1) examine the relationship between academic learning outcomes, as offered currently in targeted schools, and non-academic skills; 2) generate robust evidence on school (leader) and teacher-led intervention that effectively develops and incorporates non-academic skills into the existing schooling system to provide an overall holistic learning experience.

Some of the key concepts covered in the paper include:
a) The shift from closed to open systems when examining schooling in Pakistan and Kenya-
b) Possibilities and evidence of co-creating content and new knowledge across several key actors in the more open education system -beyond textbooks and narrow syllabi drawing upon local contexts, storytelling, heritage and positive customary practices
c) Response of children to shifting systems and their own new roles; how do they distinguish between academic and non-academic
d) Evidence of inclusive or exclusionary practices across schools and homes for children –

The paper deploys a mixed methods study that includes, but is not limited to:
a) Observing learning routines at schools and homes of key actors
b) Journal writing/recording by students, parents/caregivers and teachers//other personnel, including all children especially those with disabilities and/or with other marginalization
c) Focused Group Discussions and
d) Gathering of ‘new content’ curated, developed/developing for formal learning in mainstream school/home routines across given geographies and school systems.
e) Interplay of the above with curriculum /pedagogical, assessment and sector reform dimensions in Pakistan and Kenya at national and sub-national levels.

This paper will investigate these disruptive-constructive shifts and contextualise locally-rooted non-academic learning trends within Pakistan and Kenya, producing insights that can be utilised across the Global South.

Author

• Saba Saeed, Idara-E-Taleem-O-Aagahi (Ita)