The Kingdom of Jordan’s Human Resource Development (HRD) Strategy mandates the universal provision of kindergarten (KG2) by 2025. The HRD Strategy emphasizes using partnerships between the Ministry of Education (MoE) and other governmental and nongovernmental actors to assure expanded provision of kindergarten services. The strategy further emphasizes the need to improve the quality of kindergarten services, while reaching every child. To fully understand how the MoE can increase access, improve quality, and assure equitable provision of KG1 services, more accurate information is needed, especially about other, as yet unrecognized service providers who may be offering KG or KG-similar services to five-year-old children. The MoE needs a more complete picture of the current provision of KG2 to determine the best strategy to achieve the HRD goal that every child in Jordan receives a high-quality kindergarten experience.

Despite the growing interest in supporting learning through play across many low and middle-income countries, measures of how contexts can support learning through play are lacking. As part of the Playful Learning Across the Years (PLAY) project, the concept of “self-sustaining engagement” was identified as central to learning through play. That is, learning through play is effective because children are deeply engaged in their learning and are self-motivated to learn. The PLAY toolkit was designed to measure how settings – particularly adult-child interactions in those settings – support children’s self-sustaining engagement in learning. The toolkit was developed for use in multiple age-groups across different settings. For the 0-2 age-group, the toolkit assessed support for children’s engagement in the home, largely through interactions between the caregiver and child. These interactions were assessed through observations and through an interview with the caregiver. In the 3-5 age-group, tools were developed to measure support for engagement in the home and the classroom. Tools for the 6-12 age-group were focused only on the classroom. The classroom-based tools had several components. Teacher-child interactions were assessed through observations, a teacher survey and – for the 6-12 age-group only – a student survey. There was also a classroom inventory to assess physical aspects of the classroom – such as materials on the walls – which might support self-sustaining engagement in learning. The toolkit was developed in three phases – the Build phase used qualitative data to understand local concepts of self-sustaining engagement. The Adapt phase used cognitive interviewing and small-scale (approx. 25 schools, centers or homes) quantitative data to refine the tools. In the Test Phase we used large-scale (approx. 150 schools, centres or homes) quantitative data to assess the psychometric properties of the tool. This presentation focuses on these psychometric analyses. Data were collected for the 6-12 age group from Kenya, Ghana and Colombia; for the 3-5 age group from Colombia, Jordan and Ghana; and from Colombia only for the 0-2 age group. Results indicate how the concept of “support for self-sustaining engagement” can be divided into constituent sub-scales and how the different methods of assessment – observation, teacher report and student report – relate to one another. We will discuss plans to develop a final toolkit, based on these analyses, which can help strengthen the evidence base on learning through play.

In June 2020 the Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) adopted the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP), a framework to guide the 2020–2021 school year in light of school closures that started in March 2020, during the final weeks of the 2019–2020 school year. The plan introduced an adjusted and condensed curriculum, the Most Essential Learning Competencies, to support schools and teachers in delivering learning through alternative modalities in lieu of face to face classes. DepEd also modified the 2020–2021 school calendar to start October 5, 2020, and end in June 2021. The school year typically runs from June through March in the Philippines, but regions, divisions, and schools needed additional time to prepare and operationalize the BE-LCP. For example, regions were tasked with determining appropriate remote learning1 delivery modalities based on local context. Approaches were further adapted and defined at the individual school level as schools contextualized the learning continuity plan. Given DepEd’s decentralized approach to contextualizing and ensuring learning continuity for learners, it became clear that remote learning would look vastly different across regions, divisions, and within schools. Subsequently, this mixed-methods study was designed to take an in-depth look at schools and families across the country to understand their experiences with teaching and learning during school closures—and particularly to understand how early language and literacy learning can best be supported in the distance learning context.

Existing research on the uptake of technologies for adult learning in the global South is often focused on the use of technology to reinforce in-person learning activities and too often involves an oversimplified “with or without” comparison (Gaible and Burns 2005, Slade et al. 2018). This MEL Framework for Technology-Supported Remote Training (MEL-Tech Framework) features a more nuanced perspective by introducing questions and indicators that look at whether the technology-supported training was designed based on a solid theory of learning; whether the technology was piloted; whether there was time allocated to fix bugs and improve functionality and user design; how much time was spent using the technology; and whether in-built features of the technology provided user feedback and metrics for evaluation. The framework presents minimum standards for the evaluation of technology-supported remote training, which, in turn, facilitates the development of an actionable evidence base for replication and scale-up. Rather than “just another theoretical framework” developed from a purely academic angle, or a framework stemming from a one-off training effort, this framework is based on guiding questions and proposed indicators that have been carefully investigated, tested, and used in five RTI monitoring and research efforts across the global South: Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Malawi, the Philippines, and Uganda (Pouezevara et al. 2021). Furthermore, the framework has been reviewed for clarity, practicality, and relevance by RTI experts on teacher professional development, policy systems and governance, MEL, and information and communications technology, and by several RTI project teams across Africa and Asia. RTI drew on several conceptual frameworks and theories of adult learning in the design of this framework. First, the underpinning theory of change for teacher learning was informed by the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen 1991), Guskey’s (2002) perspective on teacher change, and Clarke and Hollingsworth’s (2002) interconnected model of professional growth. Second, Kirkpatrick’s (2021) model for training evaluation helped determine many of the categories and domains of evaluation. However, this framework not only has guiding questions and indicators helpful for evaluating one-off training events focusing on participants’ reactions, learning, behavior, and results (as is the focus in Kirkpatrick’s model) but also includes guiding questions and indicators reflective of a “fit for purpose” investigation stage, a user needs assessment and testing stage, and long-term sustainability. Furthermore, this framework’s guiding questions and indicators consider participants’ attitudes and self-efficacy (based on the research underpinning the theory of planned behavior), as well as aspects of participants’ post-training, ongoing application and experimentation, and feedback (Clarke and Hollingsworth; Darling-Hammond et al. 2017; Guskey). Lastly, the framework integrates instructional design considerations regarding content, interaction, and participant feedback that are uniquely afforded by technology.

This presentation was delivered as part of the 2022 Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conference as part of a panel describing the Education Futures research activity undertaken by the Philippines Department of Education, with support from USAID/Philippines through the All Children Reading-Philippines program managed by RTI International. Under this activity, leaders in DepEd are engaging in a range of courses and workshops to learn and apply futures thinking methodologies for reimagining how education can be delivered differently to address recurring shortcomings. The authors are Maricel Fernandez (Research Officer, RTI International) and Mark Sy (Manager of EdTech Unit, Department of Education).

This MEL Framework for Technology-Supported Remote Training seeks to help education program implementers, governments, and program evaluators more effectively design, implement, and learn lessons from remote training activities. It places special consideration on the unique characteristics of technology-supported interventions in the global South. The framework presents minimum standards for the evaluation of technology-supported remote training, which, in turn, facilitates the development of an actionable evidence base for replication and scale-up. Rather than “just another theoretical framework” developed from a purely academic angle, or a framework stemming from a one-off training effort, this framework is based on guiding questions and proposed indicators that have been carefully investigated, tested, and used in five RTI monitoring and research efforts across the global South: Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Malawi, the Philippines, and Uganda (Pouezevara et al. 2021). Furthermore, the framework has been reviewed for clarity, practicality, and relevance by several RTI project teams across Africa and Asia.

This presentation was delivered at the 2021 mEducation Alliance Symposium in a panel on the subject of education technologies for basic education in the Philippines.

Led by the Basic Education Coalition (BEC), the Governments' Organizational Responses to COVID-19 - Igniting Interest and Institutional Capacity in EdTech study sought to understand what governments, specifically Ministries of Education (MoE), had to do organizationally to implement these programs, such as forging new partnerships, organizing and capacity building of personnel, developing or revising distance learning policies, and so on. The information shared in this report stems from a global survey implemented across 12 countries in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and South America with 23 responses from key MoE staff, including several department directors. In doing so, the study fills a knowledge gap for the international basic education sector and provides valuable insights to inform future education systems' capacity building programming. Insights and learnings surfaced from this study provide critical data on MoE capacity, technology investment, and other emerging structural shifts and strategies to support large-scale Education Technology (EdTech) programming and digital transformation of key activities.

This research dives into the results of a 2019 survey of district ICT coordinators, school ICT coordinators and teachers in the Philippines, which collected information on the use of ICT in schools before the pandemic and school closures. The authors ask the questions: “How might the investment in school-based technology have prepared teachers to transition to various forms of remote, home-based teaching and learning?”, and “If experience with ICT in schools is assumed to be an asset in transitioning to remote learning, how many school districts in the Philippines were well-positioned when COVID-19 school closures hit.” Grounded in literature on remote learning readiness, the study authors selected questions from the original survey that could be considered assets in the rapid pivot to remote learning (e.g., skills, resources, policies, and plans).

The Government of Malawi, through the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) with financial and technical support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is implementing a National Reading Programme (NRP) aimed at improving the reading skills of Malawian students in Standards 1–4, nationwide. USAID is supporting the NRP by providing technical and financial support through three activities: (1) MERIT: The Malawi Early Grade Reading Improvement Activity; (2) SEGREM: Strengthening Early Grade Reading in Malawi; and (3) YESA: Yesani Ophunzira Activity (Assess the Learners). The funding for all three activities will end between 2018 and 2021, and one of the objectives of MERIT is to ensure pathways for sustainability of reading outcomes are instituted such that gains made under the NRP are sustained after USAID support ends. As a first step, MERIT conducted a capacity assessment of the education system in Malawi to determine the extent to which the system is performing a set of core functions that have been shown to promote and sustain learning (Crouch & DeStefano, 2017). These are: (1) setting and communicating expectations; (2) monitoring against expectations; and (3) providing targeted support to schools and teachers. The goal of the capacity assessment exercise was to identify the key areas and opportunities to strengthen the education system’s capacity for producing and sustaining learning outcomes. The capacity assessment exercise involved extensive research and participatory consultation processes at national, district, and school levels, and under the guidance of an Institutional System Strengthening (ISS) Taskforce convened by the MoEST. The assessment exercise reached 13 of 34 educational districts and included focus group discussions (FGDs) with district and school-level personnel and community members and interviews with key leaders at MoEST central office. The assessment team also reviewed key policy documents and plans. The assessment exercise was undertaken between March and May 2018 by MERIT staff with support of members from the ISS Taskforce.