12 years of building scale and sustainability in literacy: The case of Mali

• In Event: Getting there: Achieving scale and sustainability through long-term investment and a commitment to iterative, incremental growth

Proposal

In close collaboration with the MOE and other national stakeholders, Education Development Center has been supporting improvements in literacy teaching and learning in Mali for more than a decade. The USAID funded FIER program successfully introduced effective teacher training strategies and the use of IAI to provide ongoing support to classroom teachers in 2006. Building on this success, EDC led the implementation of the PHARE program that introduced system reforms including the development of a primary school student reading and math competency framework and the related primary school teacher instructional standards. Both frameworks considered bilingual and French language schools and used the balanced literacy approach that is a localized iteration of EDC’s Read Right Now literacy framework. The first national level reading assessment carried out in 2009 under the PHARE program revealed the critical and urgent need to invest more in early grade reading programs.
Due to the 2011 coup, USAID stopped funding for many programs including PHARE. Throughout this period, EDC continued to work in literacy programs and to demonstrate the impact of the balanced literacy approach by providing technical support to local NGO partners through All Children Reading awards, in the conflict-affected north as part of the ERSA program, and in collaboration with CRS under the USDA funded FFE program.
Given its long standing and trusting relationships and deep knowledge of the context, EDC effectively initiated the SIRA program in 2015. The 2015 SIRA EGRA baseline results revealed that in spite of the coup, systemic investments to that point had continued to lead to improvements, to build support and capacity for going to scale and improving education opportunities. Based on lessons learned from previous programs, consultations with stakeholders and the assessment results, EDC introduced the following adaptions under SIRA:
a) Modified Teacher Training Approach in which only MOE Pedagogical Counselors are trained as trainers and all trainers work in pairs
b) Trainer Certification process in which trainers are evaluated on their theoretical knowledge;, practical application, and facilitation skills (the process supports strengthening system by providing the MOE with “evidence” of best trainers
c) Teacher motivation through high performing teacher contest also based on evidence of competencies
d) Community participation focused on classroom support
e) Investing in school directors to provide effective pedagogical support

SIRA has recently completed the EGRA mid-line and there is now more evidence of continuing improvements and lasting change. The process of sharing the results with key stakeholders has kick started an in-depth conversation about where to go next. There is growing consensus around one new direction. Project has prioritized training and support of teachers in use of classroom based formative assessment in order to more precisely identify and provide differentiated instruction for struggling learners.
EDC’s looks forward to sharing the experience in Mali. The experience demonstrates that a long term focus on the following two pillars of reform: 1) modifying and strengthening teacher training to support sustainable change and 2) use of assessment data to galvanize support for change (both aligned a shared vision of learner and teacher standards) leads to impact and the potential for sustainable change. EDC also looks forward to sharing with the audience approaches to addressing declining though stubborn zero scores in foundational literacy skills.

Author

• Thelma Khelghati, EDC