Community-based methodological support, more accessible information on teacher professional development, and an app that builds students’ reading skills are helping improve learning outcomes in Tajikistan. Over the last 10 years, USAID has supported the Government of Tajikistan to improve the teaching of reading and math in the early grades of primary school. USAID has helped reinforce key features of how the education system supports classroom instruction. Three initiatives described below are particularly notable as lasting contributions to Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) capacity to continue to improve how teachers teach and how students learn to read.

Over the last decade, USAID has been supporting the Government of Tajikistan (GOT) to improve learning outcomes in primary education. The GOT has not previously used a national objective assessment to measure those learning outcomes. USAID introduced the Early Grade Reading Assessment to measure the impact of its investments. An EGRA has been implemented about every two years since 2013.

Aligning donor investment with country priorities and effective approaches of engagement are essential for long-term impact. Over the last decade, USAID has been supporting the Government of Tajikistan (GOT) to improve literacy and numeracy skills of all primary education students. Numerous other development agencies also fund projects in the education sector, with an average total annual contribution to education of roughly (based on OECD data). The impact of these investments is less than it could be, in part because there needs to be greater alignment between the government’s priorities and development partner activities.

This report presents the findings of research undertaken in the Kyrgyz Republic, Central Asia. It forms part of a broader study that aims to explore the system and school-level practices that have supported learning continuity in Asia during the pandemic. The study will focus on the practices of policymakers that have supported teaching and learning and consider ways in which school leaders, teachers, and parents have worked to support children during periods of disruption. Rather than comparing the responses of countries in Asia, this study will highlight innovations in the system and school policies and programs in the Kyrgyz Republic and make recommendations based on insights from the Kyrgyz Republic’s education system. The study will focus on the system and school participants that support students in the Kyrgyz Republic but will not include students themselves.

This document provides a summary of research exploring the systems, policies, and school-level practices that have supported learning continuity in Asia during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a review of policy documents on COVID-19 responses in Asia and a deep dive analysis of system and school-level responses in the Philippines and the Kyrgyz Republic, the findings from this study provide policymakers and education stakeholders with evidence of promising practices that could be leveraged to support learning recovery and education system resilience. In addition, a policy review was conducted on the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), which focused on the practices of policymakers that have the potential to support teaching and learning. The study's intent is not to compare and contrast countries' responses but to highlight innovations in the system and school practices and make recommendations based on insights from system leaders and educators.

The changes in the labor market, the re-organization of work worldwide, the increasing pressure to improve economic competitiveness in a context of global inter-connectedness, less job security and stagnant or dropping standards of living alongside accelerating climate change have led many countries to rethink education. A common starting point is to consider the relevance of curricular content against this backdrop of complexity, with particular attention to social-emotional skills, competencies and flexibility. Curriculum is fundamental to teaching and learning processes. Its various components have wide-ranging consequences on the quality of education. Over time, a range of successful educational systems have prioritized competence-based curricula, learner-centered pedagogy, and continuous assessment. Other countries, including Kyrgyz Republic, are looking to learn from these ‘global education policies’ in order to update their educational systems. With a competence-based educational framework already in place, Kyrgyz Republic used this as the starting point for reform. A competence-based curriculum was introduced in Kyrgyzstan in 2014 in the form of a State Standard Framework. However, primary grade standards were not revised afterwards to align with the framework. As part of its Okuu Keremet! project (2019-2024), USAID supported the Ministry of Education and Science (MOES) to develop a Road Map that would outline the process for arriving at robust standards. The process would then be used to actually revise primary grade subject standards. This presentation will cover: 1. The government-led collaboration that took place to develop subject standards, including data analysis, the broad-ranging discussions in the working group and the involvement of practitioners. 2. The process of using a Road Map to arrive at the standards that were ultimately approved by MOES 3. The lessons learned with respect to fostering institutional capacity, creating an institutional memory for future reference, and cultivating government ownership. 4. Next steps: how the standards will be put in practice and monitored; the need to develop textbooks aligned with standards; orienting teacher education and in-service teacher training in line with the standards. During 2021-2022, MOES and Okuu Keremet – together with various multi-stakeholder technical groups – revised four primary subject standards: Mathematics, Kyrgyz and Russian Language and Reading, and “Me and the World” (basic science). The process followed the Road Map plan through four stages: 1) analysis of existing educational standards in the country and international trends; 2) review of primary level learning outcomes; 3) alignment with the country’s competence-based educational framework, and 4) consultation with diverse education experts and a community of specialists. The subject standards define the expected learning outcomes and how they relate to competencies. Subsequently, a curriculum map was formulated which depicts how these competencies will shape and prepare students for the real world, such as the job market and life skills. The Kyrgyz Academy of Education – responsible for standards among other things – organized a series of working meetings among a range of stakeholders to arrive at the first four subject standards. It then followed the overall Road Map to develop standards for the remaining six primary school subjects. All of the standards produced were approved in October 2022 and slated for implementation in the 2023-2024 academic year. One of the challenges that arose during the process was related to the lack of experience among the KAE experts in the analysis of assessment data. Understanding the outcome of learning assessment is necessary to setting a level of standards that is ambitious yet feasible for where students currently are in terms of learning per grade. Assessment results also enable KAE staff to understand international and national trends in a context where the country explicitly aims to perform better with respect to international assessments such as PISA. The formulation of measurable and achievable learning outcomes per grade was also a challenge. One of the important decisions made by the working group was to define expected outcomes at the end of the primary cycle. as a starting point. There was attention given to ensuring consistency in the transition from preschool to primary school and from primary to secondary school. Subject standards are only the starting point for changing the content of education. It needs to be accompanied by a range of key components that support the competences, such as appropriate teaching materials, the education of new teachers and the training of existing teachers, and the importance of both formative and summative assessment to know if learning outcomes are going in the desired direction. Moreover, the learning outcomes need to be made clear to communities of parents in every-day language so that they can support the process at home. So far, this has not been done in Kyrgyz Republic. As outlined in the Road Map, once standards are developed, a plan of implementation is needed, followed by assessment and, if necessary, adjustments. This cycle is expected to take a five years before the next round of review according the MOES regulation. CONCLUSIONS The collaboration of the KAE together with Okuu Keremet! and a spectrum of actors and individuals over the past three years to liberate learning shows that: 1) learning outcomes are at the core of the competency-based curriculum and these outcomes need to be clear and achievable for teachers, students, and parents; 2) standards development, revision, implementation and assessment form a unified cycle in leveraging change in the primary education system hence all parts of the cycle must be aligned. Other parts of the education system will also need to be aligned over time with competences forming the core reference point. Continuing fragmentation and incoherence will not achieve the change that Kyrgyz Republic hopes for its students, even if one piece or another is well-designed on its own.

The small, landlocked mountainous nation of Kyrgyzstan occupies an important space in Post Soviet Central Asia – as the only parliamentary democracy in the region since independence in 1992. While the country has admirably maintained near-universal enrollment rates in primary and lower-secondary levels, these important gains in educational access have not been accompanied by adequate learning outcomes. As evidenced by the 2017 National Sample Based Student Assessment, about 60% of grade 4 students in Kyrgyzstan lagged in age-appropriate comprehension level. By all estimates, these learning gaps have worsened due to school closures and economic disruptions caused by COVID-19. While improvements are necessary in many aspects of Kyrgyz school education, few issues are as pressing or as consequential as strengthening the system that prepares and supports the 75,000 public school teachers in the country. In this paper we present innovative models of teacher support structures that hold promise for creating an enabling environment for public school teachers in Kyrgyzstan to grow and succeed in their profession. Specifically, the paper will present insights from two complementary on-going initiatives (each led by one of the co-presenters) that focus on structured observation, feedback, and mentoring mechanisms, and creatively use simple technology applications to promote instructional quality in the classrooms and a community of practice across the system. Our paper will situate the scope of these initiatives in the ecosystem of teacher development practices in Kyrgyzstan and discuss their broader policy applicability. We submit that these insights would be relevant for other resource-constrained education contexts that are aspiring to improve support systems for teachers. The first initiative in focus is the technology-enhanced mentoring model of the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program of the Institute of Education (IOE) at the American University of Central Asia. Launched in 2018, the program – open to both aspiring and in-service teachers – embeds digital pathways in its structure, curricular content, and delivery processes. At the core of the program is a web-video based mentoring model that assigns experienced teachers as mentors for the MAT candidates (mentees). Both mentors and mentees use a lesson observation rubric and simple digital tools (YouTube, Google Form, Google Classroom, Zoom, etc.) to observe, analyze, and reflect on classroom instruction videos, all under the watchful guidance of a dedicated Faculty Advisor from the MAT program. The teaching observation rubric used is a modified version of the evidence-based Danielson Framework for Teaching. Besides providing constructive feedback to the mentees, the mentors are encouraged to model good practice for their mentees and help them identify possible areas of focus and improvement in the subsequent lessons. In other words, these non-hierarchical dialogs are meant to be both evaluative and generative, specific, yet holistic – attentive to mentees’ relative strengths and weaknesses in the context of the specific classroom where they need to perform. Evidence from the assessments by mentors over four cohorts of MAT practicum indicates that thanks to the video-based observation-reflection-feedback loop, the mentees are able to take ownership of their own growth and demonstrate qualitative improvements in their classroom instruction by the end of the practicum. Internal program evaluation data also suggest that the mentors themselves are appreciating benefits of their engagement in the IOE model. Additionally, having dedicated Faculty Advisors overseeing the mentoring program has not only created a support structure for the mentors, but the entire program has also resulted in a broader community of practice. While these are promising results, the scope and scale of a university-based selective program is limited when compared to the needs of the broader education system. This is where the second initiative of this paper - Okuu Keremet! (Learning is Awesome! in Kyrgyz language) is particularly significant. The ongoing USAID funded Okuu Keremet project (2019 – 2024) is designed to help improve learning outcomes in reading and mathematics of more than 450,000 students in Grades 1‒4 in 1,682 target schools in Kyrgyzstan. The project is implemented by RTI (Research Triangle International) in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Sciences of Kyrgyzstan. To date, around 15,000 teachers have completed special pedagogical training in teaching read and math in the primary grades. An important way the project has integrated technology in the improvement of instructional practice is by creation of a Coaching app that is contextualized for easy access and usage by Kyrgyz school teachers and teacher educators. This app assists methodologists to mentor teachers through classroom observations. The program uses a classroom observation rubric / checklist that is easy to interpret, and to update, using the app interface and based on country’s teacher professional standards. Around 3,500 school administrative staff and methodologists of district education departments were trained to mentor teachers in primary schools. The app is being used in 1,682 target schools. Both the IOE model and the Okuu Keremet project underscore the significance of technology-enhanced mentoring in improving instructional practices of classroom teachers in Kyrgyzstan. Data from both initiatives will be presented at the CIES Conference. As leaders of these respective initiatives, we recognize that the promise of our approaches derives from leveraging the power of digital technologies in learning-rich professional development processes for current and aspiring teacher in ways that are evidence-based, context-informed, cost-effective, sustainable, and scalable. Ongoing implementation and refinement of our respective initiatives have uncovered strong levers and weak links in the broader teacher development structures of Central Asia. One critical area is the importance of framing mentoring as a holistic approach to teacher development that goes beyond benchmarking against a rubric and attends to the intersecting concerns of teachers by promoting an ethos of growth mindset and social-emotional support. We submit that developing such holistic mentoring skills and attitudes among skilled and experienced teachers is a policy priority that must be attended to by the Ministry of Education of Kyrgyzstan and its development partners.

The ability of citizens to think critically and take a well-considered position in life is influenced by their ability to read with comprehension and by the content of what they read. WordCalc is an instrument that contributes to a body of children’s literature that is an important step to building this skill. This abstract introduces WordCalc, an advanced computer program designed to analyze linguistic features of texts. It was developed and improved in the context of two USAID-funded reading projects in the Kyrgyz Republic – Time to Read and Okuu Keremet! The very first version was produced as an Excel program under another USAID reading project in Georgia. The program addresses the lack of children’s books written in local languages, specifically Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek, in the Kyrgyz Republic. By analyzing large amounts of text, WordCalc provides local authors and publishers with language patterns that are attractive and engaging to young readers, leveled according to reading ability. The project conducted a market analysis of children’s books in 2020, revealing the scarcity of modern, locally inspired storybooks for children in schools, libraries, the market, and elsewhere. The available books predominantly consisted of outdated fairy tales and folklore, lacking consideration for the local context and culture as well as contemporary realities and topics. The majority of existing books were imported from Russia and other countries. The limited spectrum of topics highlighted the urgent need for accessible and age-appropriate literature that resonates with children’s interests, language preference and social background. Using WordCalc entails collecting as much text as possible, in different languages and for different age groups, in order to analyze text size, word and sentence counts, word length, high-frequency words and phrases for each language. Through these analyses, the program provides insight into the linguistic characteristics of text read by readers at different levels. The patterns per language and reading level enable authors to tailor their writing to the various reading levels of young readers so that children have a variety of text at the right level for them to develop their reading skill. The refinement of WordCalc resulted in the creation of a comprehensive dictionary comprised of the most frequently used words for grades 1-4 in Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek, totaling 10,000 unique words. This dictionary serves as a foundational resource for creating age-appropriate content that appeals to young readers. In collaboration with linguists, the project team identified and incorporated difficult and rare words specific to grades 1-4, ensuring comprehensive coverage of a rich vocabulary. The Kyrgyz and Uzbek languages in particular face a shortage of text-based resources, including scientific papers, articles, and standardized textbooks for grades 1-4. Therefore, the project team employed a meticulous approach to creating the dictionary, leveraging the expertise of linguists to compensate for the limited resources available for compiling the dictionary. The aim was to ensure that the final product was accurate and useful. To validate the effectiveness of WordCalc as an instrument, the team conducted several reviews of more than 1,000 texts in the three languages. In Okuu Keremet!, around 40 authors and illustrators were trained to use WordCalc, and so far, it has facilitated the production of more than 1,200 new titles, specifically tailored to children’s reading levels and their linguistic context. Moving forward, WordCalc will be introduced to a wider audience, including educators, authors, publishers, and the general public. Its usefulness for creating leveled literature for children will be encouraged among other players such as publishers, textbook writers and others. For example, two big local publishing companies want to use WordCalc as a tool for quality assurance and are already using it in the book production process. WordCalc also serves as a valuable resource for analyzing existing literature for children. By applying the program to previously published books, authors and publishers can gauge whether the books are appropriately aligned with specific ages or grades; they can refine their storytelling techniques and enhance the cultural authenticity of their work. This ensures that the existing literature is adapted to meet the needs and expectations of young readers in the Kyrgyz Republic. In conclusion, WordCalc has proven to be a valuable tool to create new texts for grade 1-4 children that builds not just reading skill but comprehension and critical thinking skills which have been consistently weak in the reading assessment of children. The expansion of genres among children’s books, including information books which are very popular, expands the range of topics that children are thinking about and exposes them to new knowledge, ideas, and feelings. By redressing the lack of literature in local languages such as Kyrgyz and Uzbek, WordCalc is also contributing to the strength of these languages as it codifies a rich vocabulary among young readers across an expanding range of topics. Engaging stories in mother tongue foster a love for reading among young readers. WordCalc’s ability to sift through and analyze text in different languages is a gift to local authors and publishers who can now create “just right” books for children in the Kyrgyz Republic.

he Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a commitment to ensure that by 2030, all girls and boys complete free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes (SDG 4.1). Performance on this goal is reported as the proportion of learners: “(a) in grades 2/3; (b) at the end of primary; and (c) at the end of lower secondary achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in (i) reading and (ii) mathematics, by sex” (M. Gustafsson, 2019, p. 6). These SDG indicators are based on global research that highlights the critical contribution of foundational skills in reading and mathematics to learners’ overall academic performance (Juel, 1988; Wharton-McDonald et al., 1988; Duncan et al., 2007; Duncan & Magnuson, 2011; Watts et al., 2014; Claessens & Engel, 2013). They also apply research from health and development sectors indicating that foundational skills are essential to reducing social inequality and improving individuals’ social and economic security and well-being (OECD, 2010; UNESCO, 2016). The recent COVID-19 pandemic further underscored the importance of focusing on foundational skills. Studies show the pandemic has resulted in a 17 percent global increase in the number of ten-year-olds lacking basic skills to 70 million learners in 2021 alone (ONE Campaign, 2021). There is an urgent need to reverse this trend so every learner develops the foundational skills required to participate fully in their community’s social and economic life. That means using evidence-based approaches to identify where resources are most needed, both across countries and within a country, to address learning inequities and ensure that learners are able to demonstrate minimum proficiency levels. This panel presentation will show how the Align Learning Inputs to Global Norms (ALIGN) for Minimum Proficiency process can help address these needs. The ALIGN process is an evidence-based gap analysis that uses the Global Proficiency Framework (GPF) as a reference to determine if a country’s education system will enable learners to meet global norms in reading and mathematics. An ALIGN process focuses on four components: curriculum and standards, teaching and learning materials, teacher training, and assessment. The ALIGN process identifies potential gaps or misalignments in each of these four components and actions to address them. The ALIGN process was successfully piloted in four countries, Djibouti, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan.

The Ministry of Preschool and School Education (MoPSE) in Uzbekistan has set the goal of transforming the education system and improving English proficiency among secondary school graduates by 2030. To support this initiative, the Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program, in collaboration with MoPSE, conducted a study in 2023 to assess the adoption and use of new English language teaching and learning materials in public schools during the 2022-2023 academic year. The study aimed to gather data to inform teacher professional development and effective utilization of the new textbooks for English language instruction in grades 1-11. To collect the necessary data, an online survey was administered from April 25 to May 20, 2023, targeting English teachers in grades 1-11 across all regions of Uzbekistan. The survey focused on teaching practices, instructional approaches, and the utilization of new materials and digital resources. The survey responses from 2,363 English teachers in public schools were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative descriptive statistics techniques. However, the survey process faced methodological challenges such as internet and computer access for some participants, varying levels of familiarity with responding to online surveys, and potential language barriers due to respondents' limited English proficiency. Additionally, the self-reported nature of the data introduced potential biases in the responses. The survey results revealed several important findings. Participating teachers expressed satisfaction with the new textbooks and reported positive changes in their teaching practices, as well as perceived improvements in student learning. However, challenges were identified, including limited textbook availability, time constraints in delivering certain activities suggested in the textbooks, technological barriers, and limited access to audio-visual equipment in classrooms. The integration of real-life contexts in the textbooks enhanced the overall learning experience. Based on these findings, recommendations were made to address the identified challenges and improve the adoption process, including providing guidance, addressing textbook availability, offering comprehensive teacher training, and establishing mechanisms for continuous review and student feedback. Implementing these recommendations might support the enhancement of English language instruction in Uzbekistan. In conclusion, the adoption of the Guess What! and Prepare series as new English language instructional materials in Uzbekistan's public schools has yielded positive results, as reported by participating teachers. The integration of these textbooks has brought about changes in teaching practices and perceived achievements of student learning outcomes. The survey results indicated a high level of teacher satisfaction with the Student's Books, Workbooks, and Teacher's Books, with the Workbooks receiving the highest satisfaction level at 83%. Moreover, over 67% of teachers acknowledged that the new textbooks had brought about a change in their approach to teaching English. Overall, the study highlights the positive influence of new instructional materials on English language instruction in the Republic of Uzbekistan. The successful integration of the Guess What! and Prepare series sets the stage for continuous progress in English language learning and teaching. It is crucial to build upon these findings and recommendations to further improve teaching practices, support teacher professional development, and ensure ongoing enhancement of English language instruction throughout the country.