Catch-up program in Zambia- reflections on past performance to improve future scale up

• In Event: Mitigating the learning crisis: Evidence and Lessons from literacy remedial programs in Kenya, Zambia, and Lebanon

Proposal

As a response to COVID-19 and the challenges presented in the acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy skills the Zambia Ministry of Education has been implementing a remedial learning program known as Catch – Up which is based on the Teaching at the Right Level methodology (TaRL). Catch – Up is different in that it does not focus on the age or grade of the learner. There are some basic principles in Catch-Up. Catch -Up requires that learners from different grades, in the Zambian case grades 3,4 and 5 are grouped together after they have ben assessed individually in literacy and numeracy. They are then grouped according to their literacy and numeracy abilities rather than grade or age. The purpose of this grouping is to enable the learners to be taught together with other learners that are at the same level. Teachers on the other hand, are provided with specific training in the TaRL methodology and use various materials for each ability level. Teachers are encouraged to prepare well for lessons and to ensure that these lessons are interactive with the use of various available local resources. The lessons are conducted using a local language that the learners are familiar with making it much easier for the learners to understand. Lessons are therefore tailored to meet the actual abilities of the learner, enabling the learner to receive targeted instruction. at their learning level and once they demonstrate that they have mastered this level they are then moved to the next level. Monitoring and mentoring are important in the implementation of this program, and this is conducted at different levels in the classroom, school, zone, and district level to ensure support for the program.
The evidence of the success of these programs (Catch-Up) is strong and indicates that such programs allow children to catch up and progress in their education. In 2021, the most recent baseline and end line data, shows that learners that were able to read a simple paragraph increased from a baseline of 33 per cent to 52 percent at the endline. In numeracy, learner performance was also improved as learners that could subtract improved from a baseline of 27 per cent to 48 percent at endline.
The Catch-up program began as a pilot in 2016 in 80 schools and has since expanded and is now implemented in over 4000 schools in various districts of 8 provinces of Zambia with plans to completely saturate these provinces by the end of 2025.

Author

• Anne Njogu, Mott MacDonald