Minimum Quality Standards for the Integration of New Pedagogies

• In Event: Tensions in Supporting Teachers and Teacher Professional Development Across the Humanitarian-Development Nexus

Proposal

The physical and psycho-social environment (and safety) of schools is critical to quality education delivery in humanitarian contexts. There is global consensus around the right to equitable and inclusive learning environments for all, yet gaps in funding and priorities can limit the actualization of such goals. In refugee contexts, host country facilities might not be prepared for sudden influxes of additional displaced children in acute crises, or school facilities may not exist at all in relevant areas. Additionally, refugees are often hosted in geographic areas that are under-resourced with minimal financing and support to quality education delivery for both nationals and refugees. Structural barriers, such as a lack of teaching and learning materials, insufficient number of classrooms, and overcrowded classes can restrict teachers’ ability to implement new pedagogies.

PlayMatters, a multi-year education initiative funded by the LEGO Foundation, is a regional teacher professional development project that seeks to work with East African education systems to integrate active learning pedagogies into teachers’ daily practice, using “Learning through Play” as a catalyst. In doing so, PlayMatters holistically supports teacher professional development and support and recognizes the importance of an enabling environment for the implementation of Learning through Play in schools as a core component of the PlayMatters intervention package. However, as a systems strengthening program working in underfunded refugee contexts, PlayMatters faces a major tension - what is the way forward when schools don’t meet basic safety standards? In response, PlayMatters developed a Minimum Quality Standards (MQS) checklist to assess the integration of Learning through Play in schools across 6 domains. The MQS checklist is aligned with the INEE Minimum Standards, particularly Domain 2, but focuses specifically on what absolutely must be in place in order for a pedagogical reform such as LtP to be possible, with the understanding that resources are likely to remain scarce in protracted refugee education contexts.

This paper highlights PlayMatters’ use of the MQS checklist in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda across both refugee and host community contexts. Regional aggregate analysis of MQS data provides a snapshot into the ‘state of schools’ in PlayMatters implementation areas to lend insights into the initial readiness of schools for integrating Learning through Play and the tensions between humanitarian (hardware) and development (software) approaches. Moreover, this paper discusses the tensions, challenges, and opportunities as an NGO-implemented project to support an enabling environment amidst government and humanitarian actor mandates.

Authors

• Shewaye Tike, IRC

• Anne C Smiley, IRC