Piloting classroom assistants as a way to help teachers manage large classes and provide individualized support to disadvantaged learners

• In Event: How to catch up: Education for marginalized Congolese provinces and overcrowded environments

Proposal

Context: In 2021, D.R. Congo decreed a free basic education policy. One of the effects of the policy has been to improve the gross enrolment rate at primary level. In turn, classes are overcrowded, with between 80 to 120 students per class in rural areas. This situation has had a huge impact on the quality of education, with teachers complaining that they are unable to manage classrooms and ensure quality teaching, while students, especially the more marginalized, have failed to make meaningful reading progress.

The Process: A donor-funded reading project conducted a baseline assessment targeting grade 3 students. Assessment results revealed very low reading skills. 80% of children completing the second grade of primary school did not have level 3 in reading. Girls, Batwa pygmies, and children living with disabilities accounted for more than half of these students.

The project is piloting an adaptive strategy with the Classroom Assistant approach to support learning, respect, and well-being in overpopulated classrooms by focusing support on disadvantaged children, such as girls, ethnic minorities – Batwa and children living with disabilities, and children with learning difficulties.

We will share the project’s strategy and approaches, and student, teacher, and classroom assistants’ perspectives on how the school experience has changed, as demonstrated during a pre and post test three months after training and deploying Classroom Assistants in overcrowded classrooms.

This case study will help education practitioners to consider whether this model could add value in their own contexts to help create safer, more nurturing, and supportive learning environments, where community members that are under-represented in the teaching workforce can come in and be role models for children, provide practical support to stressed teachers, and provide nurturing support to disadvantaged children.

Author

• Consolata Nzeeb, Save the Children