An alternative model of continuous teacher professional development for better learning outcomes in Senegal

• In Event: Disrupting the status quo of continuous teacher professional development: alternative models for improved learning outcomes

Proposal

The Ministry of Education of Senegal recently issued the Modèle Harmonisé d'Enseignement Bilingue au Sénégal (MOHEBS), a policy reform to institute a bilingual model of early grade reading in national languages and French to improve learning outcomes. The current USAID program is supporting the Ministry in redesigning the continuous teacher professional development (TPD) system prior to full roll-out of MOHEBS. The program is expected to reach more than 2,000 teachers from upper Kindergarten, Grades 1 and 2.
In Senegal, teacher training takes place at the regional, district, and school levels. The Centre Regional de Formation Professionel des Enseignants (CRFPE) manages continuous TPD in each of the regions, mainly through large-scale trainings. The Cellules d'Animation Pédagogique et Culturelle (CAPC) are groups of teachers from the same locality or district. Members carry out group activities organized around workshops and seminars. Within schools and classrooms, the most experienced principals and teachers supervise and lead the teaching team through a Cellule d'animation Pédagogique Interne (CAPI). Finally, a school-based coaching mechanism was introduced under a previous USAID program, through which principals and inspectors conduct class visits to supervise teachers and offer advice.
The USAID program conducted a study at the start of the 2022-2023 school year on the training needs of teachers, inspectors, and directors at the regional level, which revealed that the training mechanisms described above are under-utilized and ineffective. For example, the TPD model continues to rely heavily on massive events at the start of the school year, rather than providing ongoing support. District- and school-level activities lack regularity and structure, which negatively affect teachers’ perception of the benefits and reduce attendance. Moreover, the use of ICT remains quite timid vis-à-vis digital capabilities. The study also revealed an urgent need to reinforce teachers' skills in reading and writing in national languages, as well as in teaching French as a second language. Most importantly, the study concluded that using the traditional face-to-face training mechanism would not suffice to effectively and efficiently reinforce teachers’ skills to implement MOHEBS and recommended the use of all the training mechanisms described above to reinforce teacher capacity.
The identification of these needs prompted the Ministry to design a hybrid, multimodal, complementary, and integrative TPD approach with the following elements:
• Face-to-face training based on clusters of schools located as close as possible to teachers
• Increased functionality of the CAPC and CAPI to foster peer teaching among teachers
• Individual coaching and classroom supervision via face-to-face interactions and the use of tablets and phones
• an e-learning training platform with digital modules on national languages and the pedagogies of bilingualism to promote self-directed training, with the potential to receive credits toward career progression
• Peer-to-peer networking and practice-sharing via WhatsApp and other platforms managed by the teachers and the Ministry

The implementation of this model will be closely monitored and evaluated based on fidelity of implementation and rapid learning assessment data collected throughout the school year.

Author

• Ablaye Niang, RTI International