Challenging the Status Quo on Teacher Training, Notions of Learning/Skill and Assessment through Life Skill Education Project in Mozambique

• In Event: Assessment, New Digital Technologies and Education

Proposal

The traditional education system has long been criticized for its narrow focus on learning limited to the foundational skill of literacy and numeracy, lack of child-centered pedagogy, and standardized testing, which often overlook students' holistic skill development.


This work aims to challenge and change the status quo through life skill education project in Mozambique, particularly to rethink the three key aspects of the traditional education system: (1) the conventional notion of learning and life skills, (2) the traditional teacher training modality, and (3) the assessment modality.
This work will directly address the CIES statement “all is not well in the world, and that the status quo must be challenged and changed” and touch upon several sub-themes on curriculum (# 2) and Pedagogy (#4). In particular, it will explore the different strategies/tactics of protest to embrace holistic learning/skills, teacher training modality and formative assessment.


This work tries to address the 3 main problems: (1) conventional notions of learning and life skills, (2) traditional teacher training modality, and (3) limited assessment modality.

To address these problems, a small-scale life skill education pilot project (2023 Jan-Dec) led by the author was initiated targeting for 1200 education actors, consisting of assessment, training, coaching and advocacy for 6 schools in 3 provinces of Mozambique.

(1) Conventional notions of learning and life skills

Globally, there has been a serious learning crisis—the majority of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple story by the end of primary school . However, the learning crisis is often limited to foundational skills (literacy/numeracy), excluding essential skills such as Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) or life skills, despite a large body of empirical evidence about its importance on academic result, access, teaching performance or well-being, etc.

In Mozambique, whose HDI is 185th out of 191st in 2021 (UNDP, 2022), the case of the learning crisis could be more severe as over 90% of the 3rd grade lack the basic reading/writing and math skills (national exam, 2016). This is assumed to be negatively impacted by COVID-19.

In the Mozambican Education Sector Plan 2022-2029, one of the three strategic objectives highlights both academic and life skills. In addition, new national curriculum (2020) prioritize 7 competencies that primary graduates need to equip with (mostly SEL/life skill related, which are: communication; technological; Reasoning and problem solving; Interpersonal relationship; Personal development and autonomy; well-being, health and the environment and; aesthetic and artistic sensitivity) . Despite the strategic focus on holistic skill, however, the key interview conducted in 2022 December with stakeholders and MoE found a lack of awareness, data, teacher capacity and practice. In addition, the notion of life skill was limited to specific gender (female adolescent) and area (health/nutrition) instead of a holistic skillset for all, due partially to traditional interventions focusing on reproductive health(HIV/AIDS) and nutrition.

To address this challenge, the project will address holistic life skills targeting 10 competencies based on the national curriculum and global evidence for all.

(2). Traditional teacher training modality

Traditional teacher training often emphasizes mere transmission of knowledge, which may overlook the importance of equipping teachers with the skills to teach holistic skill. Also, due to a large class size and several shifts in many developing countries including Mozambique, finding the right timing for in-service teacher training remains challenging. Most of in-service teacher training in Mozambique is covered by external donor fund, which usually requires financial resource (e.g. provision of lunch/meal for 4+ hours and perdiem for 8+ hours / 1 day), which has been criticized as non-sustainable approach.

To tackle these challenges, the life skill pilot project focused on 2 types of intervention for teacher training: (1) mini-training (2-3 hour-long without financial support) and (2) follow-up through WhatsApp group for continuous discussion.

(3) Reimagining the Notion of Assessment

Traditional assessment methods often rely heavily on summative standardized tests, which may not capture the full range of students' abilities and fail to account for their life skill development. Therefore, alternative assessment methods that include multiple formative assessment will be needed.

However, there is a tendency that assessment has been used as a tool to punish low performance/capacity, instead of continuous learning guidance. Another challenge is the tendency of large assessment with too many questions/pages/process, which makes it difficult to conduct light and continuous assessment.

Therefore multiple formative assessment tool was developed and implemented (self-report survey, anonymous pre-post training test, and WhatsApp group discussion/interview).


sharing process/results on a holistic skill education approach to challenge the: (1) conventional notion of learning/skills, (2) traditional teacher training modality, and (3) assessment modality through multiple formative assessment including the use of WhatsApp. Also, this work from Mozambican can contribute to a lack of global resource in Portuguese and similar challenges in the region/world. Moreover, albeit small scale pilot, this initiative from MoE can show an example of institutionalization prof process of skill education as opposed to donor-driven project-based approach.


For the areas addressed in the work, it will further need collective action including implementation of longitudinal studies and small-scale project from diverse audience to produce more holistic evidence.


Although the project is yet to finish (Dec 2023), involvement of parents could have provided deeper insights. Ideally parents could be included to capture the holistic picture, but it was not feasible due to a limited resource and time.


Although more result will be generated as mentioned, some preliminary finding contributed to raising awareness and providing practical knowledge on the implementation and assessment of life skill education:
1. Contributing to rethinking the traditional learning/skills, teacher training modality (including the use of WhatsApp), and assessment modality.
2. Raise awareness of the gap between competency-based curriculum and practice
3. Importance of multiple formative assessment (for learning rather than punishing)
4. Self-awareness and creativity can be the first step towards a more objective assessment and skill integration into teacher’s lesson
5. More small-scale implementation and evidence generation will be needed (learning by doing)

Author

• Hiroshi Okamoto, JICA