Learning innovations developed by the Global South: "Catch up" programs in Brazil, Côte d'Ivoire, and Senegal

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Across the globe, countries, education systems, and communities are grappling with the learning crisis. As data and evidence across a wide range of assessments and research programs suggest, children, especially children marginalized due to language, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, disability, or other factors, are not learning. In country after country, we see low learning levels for primary school aged children, with the situation worsened by pandemic-induced school closures, and with dire consequences for the construction of an equitable and just world.
As education systems expand their focus on improving foundational skills in reading and math, educators and communities across contexts are collaborating on instructional innovations accompanied by an expansive research agenda to reach all children. Today, several approaches are operating at scale to help children catch up on reading and math and fully participate in their education, as a human right. These programs include the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach in multiple countries; Ndaw Wune in Senegal, which combines structured pedagogy and levelled instructional groups; and others. As these initiatives grow, a number of models for delivery and collaboration have emerged, suited to the children they serve and the unique histories and contexts in which they are operating. This panel will showcase impactful programs and accompanying applied research aimed at improving children’s foundational skills and ensuring their educational rights in a variety of country settings. Each presentation will highlight unique aspects of the programs, such as purposeful inclusive design, teacher reflection, teaching children in the languages of their communities, decentralized system engagement, multi-actor collaboration, and bilingual instruction, along with innovative approaches to process and outcome research. The impact of the initiatives will be highlighted through program data, research findings, and the scale pathways (deep and broad) in each country. This is education aimed at access and opportunity for every child.
The first presentation will explore the development of the Ndaw Wune accelerated program in Senegal. Ndaw Wune means For Every Child in Wolof, the largest language in Senegal, and Success in Pulaar, the second largest language in Senegal. Ndaw Wune uses structured pedagogy, levelled instructional groups, and instruction in students’ home languages to ensure that “les enfants en difficultés” (struggling children) are able to “catch up” with their classmates and succeed, thanks to solid reading and mathematical skills. The program is being iteratively developed by ARED in close collaboration with the Senegalese Ministry of Education and is being implemented through a phase-wise approach in the country. The program is tightly coordinated with the Ministry of Education, working with community members, community teachers, public school teachers, school directors, local government, inspectorate staff, and central level Ministry staff. Research and evaluation focus on teacher perspectives on learning for all, teacher behavior, implementation processes, and student learning.
The second presentation will explore the phase-wise application of the TaRL approach to the decentralised education system of Brazil – a contrast to systems in most Sub-Saharan African countries. This adaptation of TaRL has been led by Instituto Gesto, with support from Elos Educacional, in collaboration with government systems of the country. As of January 2023, these interventions have reached ~100 schools and over 2,000 learners. The delivery of this program has led to improvements of over 30 percentage points in the proportion of children who can read phrases and solve subtraction at the end of the program.
The final presentation will explain the unique partnership model of the TaRL initiative in Cote d’Ivoire. Since 2018, the Ministry of National Education and Literacy (MENA) in Côte d’Ivoire has been working with partners to test, refine and scale its adaptation of the TaRL approach known as the Programme d’Enseignement Ciblé (PEC) in the country. Today, the MENA is working towards scaling PEC to 4,000 schools in the next few years, with an ambition to go national scale as part of their emerging strategy to improve foundational learning.
The programs showcased in this panel will shed light on successful strategies for government systems and national organizations to address the challenge of ensuring all children learn, accelerating foundational skills for children in primary grades and enabling discussion on challenges and roadblocks that are encountered as programs go to scale. The variety of actors, country contexts, and applied research approaches will enable the audience to reflect on their experiences, the power of this type of education to ensure all children in low resource contexts are supported, and to consider how these approaches could apply to new contexts and new research questions.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Dana Schmidt, Echidna Giving

Individual Presentations

• Education as an act of protest: ARED’s accelerated learning program Ndaw Wune (Success for All) - Mamadou Ly, ARED

• A coalition to transform learning - the case of PEC in Côte d’Ivoire - Devyani Pershad, TaRL Africa

• Empowering decentralized transformations: Improving foundational literacy and Numeracy through Teaching at the Right Level in Brazil - Fernanda Patriota Salles Ribeiro, Motriz