From tension to collaboration: Coalition-building for improvement of foundational learning in Kenya

• In Event: Strengthening Foundational Learning for Peace in Kenya: Teacher Empowerment, Playful Learning, and Collaboration

Proposal

Kenya has joined a transnational coalition known as the Lighthouse Coalition. This brings together middle-tier government educators from Kenya, South Africa, and India. This coalition of education stakeholders has become a crucial mechanism for reducing tensions and improving the delivery of foundational learning. Through the coalition, the Ministry of Education, its departments, and agencies, in partnership with teachers’ unions, civil society organizations, development partners, parents’ associations, and community leaders. Each group holds important but sometimes competing interests, which can cause friction over policy priorities, resource allocation, and accountability. A coalition provides a platform for dialogue, cooperation, and shared decision-making, helping these actors shift from confrontation to constructive partnership.
Statement of the problem
Kenya has been tackling the sad state of only a mere 40% of all learners transitioning to middle school have acquired Foundational learning benchmarks (Usawa Agenda, 2023). This has been reported since the 1st Uwezo report of 2012. At the heart of the envisaged change are the middle-tier education officers, often gatekeepers of the system, who could drive the change needed to have all children reading with comprehension and fluent in numeracy by the time they exit the foundational level of education. Middle-tier officers are the supervisors of implementers; technocrats who enjoy tenure of office away from political bickering and changes. They are the gatekeepers with influence. These officers need to appreciate that without strong foundations, learners struggle to transition through upper grades, and the country risks undermining its human capital development.
objective
By aligning diverse stakeholders under a common agenda, the coalition reduces mistrust, enhances transparency, and builds collective ownership of reforms such as curriculum implementation, teacher training, and equitable resourcing towards the achievement of foundational learning goals.

Theory of change
The Lighthouse coalition has a theory of change with three pillars. In Pillar 1, there is an immersion of select officers into the success stories of shifts in Foundational Learning that have been properly rooted and documented. In this immersion, there are visits to schools and lessons from the actual drivers of this change. These are often middle-level officers who did the work within the existing systems but did it very well and continuously, till it not only brought change, but change became embedded into daily practice. The second pillar is the development of tactics; here, the team documented their journey in a journal. Verbatim words were recorded. Short videos were developed and often replayed. Informed by Confucius by replaying and engaging, then slowly the mind and attitude shift. There are visits to domestic sites, either of excellence or of children at the margin, and hence experienced extreme learning poverty. Pillar three is the Community of Practice. This is where the transnational leaders meet, exchange ideas, and challenge or nudge each other through lived experiences to drive change. This, coupled with exposure to experts who help clarify and build the capacity of the education leaders, moves the officers into positive action of driving change in the classroom.
We put the theory into practice through practical initiatives, including joint planning sessions, an appreciation of data from both government agencies and civil societies by these middle-tier officers, who in turn use the information to advise decision-makers and to either draft or review policies. Currently in Kenya, we are drafting the Foundational Learning policy with benchmarks and implementation guidelines. There has been the formation of multi-stakeholder working groups focused on early-grade reading and numeracy. These mechanisms promote evidence-based dialogue while enabling stakeholders to monitor progress and resolve disputes quickly. Moreover, the coalition fosters community engagement, ensuring that parents and local leaders feel represented in national education discussions.
Results and findings
Immersion in working scenarios and domestic site visits are key catalytic moments in influencing government officers who become champions of change. The Mindshift of pursuing desired change eminently emerges. An officer related this of their immersion in Sobral,” The beauty of Sobral is that they do the obvious but do it very well.” Further, when in-country teams spend time together and share similar exposures, it increases trust and relationships that accelerate reform journeys. In-country teams are also able to work through pain points such as challenges of teacher capacity development and resourcing of schools with adequate learner-facing materials that promote learning. Through the work of the coalition, we have built a body of evidence on advocacy and literature on how to orchestrate change in the classroom through the government.
Working in the system and with the system makes sustaining gains flawless, as everything is embedded in the system. This reduces levels of resistance by middle-tier officers who often are the link between policy and practice. Reforming education through the system works in favour of the majority of learners who access education from public schools.
Working with middle-tier education managers has been proven to work by shifting the “sphere of control” and prompting the officers into action at their level. Immersions and transnational communities of learning coupled with the development of tactics allow for continuous probing, training, and engagement. This embeds a level of accountability for action at the country level for country reporting.
Small bites over time nudge officers towards a cycle of action and ultimately change. This has resulted in government middle-tier leaders participating in designing initiatives and demanding high-quality FLN reforms. One officer is quoted to have said,” A child is 7 years old once, will you waste their life?” while another said, “Big class or small classes is not the issue, address teacher empowerment. Make teachers competent.”
Lighthouse Coalition makes Global South education success stories easy to understand, so that tactics for system reform spread across borders. Ultimately, the coalition of education actors in Kenya represents more than conflict management and presents itself as an engine for collective action. Fostering unity of purpose, it creates the conditions necessary for effective and sustainable delivery of foundational learning.

Author

• Lydia Chege, Zizi Afrique Foundation