Counterpart International Comparative Analysis of School Systems and Educators in USDA-funded McGovern-Dole Food for Education Programs

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: School systems and course design improvement

Proposal

Counterpart International, Inc. (Counterpart) designs and implements multi-year programs that address food security, agricul¬ture, and private sector development while integrating broader social, political, and human development dy¬namics. Since 2008, Counterpart has been a key partner to the U.S. De¬partment of Agriculture’s (USDA) McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition (McGovern-Dole), implementing projects in Cameroon, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal. McGovern-Dole programming—celebrating its 20th year in 2022—supports education, child development, and food security in vulnerable communities around the world. McGovern-Dole provides school meals and take-home rations to improve student retention and enrollment, literacy, and engagement. McGovern-Dole also builds capacity of teachers, school directors, and regional and national officials in Ministries of Education through professional development, curriculum development, monitoring and evaluation. The multi-pronged, multi-layered and systemic approach of McGovern-Dole adopts a holistic understanding of challenges and opportunities in target communities ensuring the school is at the nucleus of sustainable interventions. Counterpart currently implements McGovern-Dole projects in Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal, leveraging our civil society, localization, and governance capabilities to innovate more effective solutions. Throughout, we focus on sustainability that enables country programs to achieve self-reliance and equity in education systems and settings.

For the February 2023 CIES conference, Counterpart proposes a panel session to present a comparative analysis on our three McGovern-Dole programs, all of which are at different phases of implementation. The panel will contribute to comparative and international perspectives regarding conference Sub-Theme III: School Systems and Educators to Improve Learning and Teaching in Formal or Informal Settings. Utilizing the lens of each projects’ approach to early childhood education, multi-lingual instruction and learning, and literacy improvement (informed and assessed by project-specific baseline, mid-term, and endline evaluation results and Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRA)), the panel will highlight the three countries’ experience to-date and innovative approaches to learning and teaching in formal and informal settings and supporting equitable education systems and curriculum for all.

The panel will present the work of regional partner, Associates in Research and Education for Development (ARED), a Senegal-based organization which has partnered with Counterpart on literacy, teacher professional development, and curriculum development activities in both Senegal and Mauritania. ARED specializes in national language development and local language curriculum development. We will specifically highlight Counterpart’s Education System reform work in Mauritania. One of the main activities of our McGovern-Dole project in Mauritania has been to develop and produce a curriculum for teaching letters and developing decodable words and text/stories, in addition to teacher guides. In the Mauritania regions of Brakna and Gorgol, primary school students’ literacy level is quite low. According to Counterpart’s McGovern-Dole Project Assessment Report (December 2020), only 7% of students demonstrated the ability to read and understand the meaning of grade level text in Arabic, while only 2% could do so in French. Moreover, by the end of the second grade, only 32.2% of students can read 20 letters per minute in Arabic and 5.9% in French. To address these challenges, the Government of Mauritania has been working on an educational reform to improve the country’s educational programs, evaluate and train teachers, and improve their working conditions nationwide.

Counterpart and ARED organized a workshop to build the capacity of 24 technical working groups (TWG) from the Mauritanian Ministry of Education in the design of scripted guides and decodable booklets and in learning-based formative assessment using EGRA. The team then produced a teaching guide to support teachers in developing reading fluency and comprehension skills. For the first time in Mauritania, Counterpart adapted EGRA to the Mauritanian context and conducted an EGRA training that benefited 13 national education officials, 35 regional education inspectors, and 51 school directors. The textbook and teacher guide have been tested in 51 pilot schools; Counterpart is currently printing quantity of textbook to be distributed to all 209 McGovern-Dole project schools with the goal of “one student, one textbook”. The Minister of Education has recommended the use of EGRA, along with the Counterpart-developed first-grade textbook, teacher guide and the EGRA tool in schools nationwide. At the project TWG Workshop held on February 19, 2021, the Minister of Education requests that Counterpart and ARED collaborate with the Ministry of Education to develop one manual to be used in all schools nationwide and not only in select pilot schools.” The project team is currently working with the TWG to develop the school textbook and teacher guide in Arabic and French for the 2022-2023 school year.

Counterpart Chief of Parties will discuss what, in their projects, has led to successful capacity building and support to government counterparts to adapt and adopt new curriculum, EGRA, and integration of best practices and global education standards. The panel will reflect on why or why some approaches have or have not contributed to sustainable approaches and what would we have done differently at this stage of the project(s).

The panel will also have contributions from USDA representatives from the Foreign Agricultural Service who will identify how literacy interventions and approaches are useful to monitoring, evaluation, and learning for the global McGovern-Dole portfolio.

The panel seeks input from the CIES and CIES SIGs, especially, Early Childhood Development, Global Literacy, Inclusive Education, Monitoring and Evaluation, Teacher Education and Teaching Profession, Youth Development and Education, Language Issue, and Inclusive Education. Counterpart, in order to contribute to the wider learnings of McGovern-Dole literacy and teaching interventions, and the adapt current projects interventions to leverage and or collaborate on existing programs in our respective countries (Senegal, Mauritania, and Mozambique). Counterpart programs are expanding within countries (Senegal and Mauritania) and would like advice on how to scale from pilot-sized interventions to regional and/or national- sized.

Format:
Moderator/Chair:
Theresa Becchi, Associate Director of Food Security, Education, and Nutrition at Counterpart International

Panelists/Discussants:
• Mamadou Ly, Director, Associates in Research and Education for Development (ARED), Senegal/Mauritania
• Desire Yameogo, USDA McGovern-Dole Chief of Party, Mauritania
• Kathryn Lane, USDA McGovern-Dole Chief of Party, Senegal
• Katia Dos Santos Dias, USDA McGovern-Dole Chief of Party, Mozambique
• Monitoring and Evaluation Specialists from USDA, Foreign Agriculture Service, McGovern-Dole program

Author

• Theresa Becchi, Counterpart International