Strengthening teacher education across Malawi: Collaboration, training, and development

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The strong National Reading Program developed by the Malawi Ministry of Education (MoE), with support from USAID, has focused predominantly on strengthening the literacy skills of children enrolled in Standards 1 through 8. Recently, pre-service teacher education has become a strong focus for intervention and collaboration in order to improve the training that primary school teachers receive before entering the classroom.

The USAID-funded STEP Activity specifically targets teacher educators focused on literacy education in pre-service programs at all public and private Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) in Malawi, as well as the Ministry of Education officers working develop Malawi’s first primary education diploma program in Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs), a national Continual Professional Development (CPD) program, and an overhaul of the EMIS to improve tracking of teacher development and learner outcomes. The STEP Activity has spent the past 2 years supporting the development of the diploma program, responding to the need to upgrade TTC language lecturers’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes of evidence-based teaching of early grade literacy, and supporting the MoE in developing mechanisms that will support coordination, co-planning, and co-funding of interventions funded by multiple development partners.

This panel of STEP Activity staff and MoE officials consists of four presentations. The presentations will discuss the education system in Malawi from the government’s perspective; the role of the STEP Activity in supporting the MoE to coordinate multilateral donor contributions, design a diploma program, and roll out a Continuous Professional Development program for in-service teachers; and empirical data from pre-, mid- and post-test results of the Foundational Literacy Course assessment indicating successful capacity development through intensive and continuous professional development activities with teacher educators. Each presentation will include lessons learned and how micro-level successes feed into the macro-level performance of the consortium.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Heather Rice, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Individual Presentations

• Overview of the Malawi Teacher Education system, current reform efforts, and the progress to date of the STEP Activity - Zizwa Msukuma, Ministry of Education; Augustine Fadeson Kamlongera, School to School International

• Measuring the impact of an intensive professional development course for TTC Lecturers - Providence Uwera, School-to-School International (STS); Fanny Tasiye Nkunika, School to School International

• Developing the curriculum of Malawi’s first TTC primary education diploma - Blessings Chisama, Char Char Literacy; Natalie Conti, Char Char Literacy

• A successful model for coordinating multiple inputs from developing partners into the same MoE reform initiative. - Augustine Fadeson Kamlongera, School to School International

Discussant

• Adrienne Barnes-Story, Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University