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.

The Malawi National Reading Program (NRP) is the country's flagship education program aimed at improving the reading skills of all Malawian learners in Standards 1 to 4. USAID supports the NRP by providing finance and technical assistance through several activities including MERIT: Malawi Early Grade Reading Improvement Activity (MERIT), Yesani Ophunzira (YESA), Strengthening Early Grade Reading in Malawi (SEGREM) and Reading for All Malawi (REFAM). MERIT focuses on teacher professional development and support, YESA on continuous assessment and remediation, REFAM on inclusive education, and SEGREM on materials development. Since 2016, the NRP has reached over 56,000 teachers and 4.6 million students in all public schools in Malawi. In addition, results from the 2018 Early Grade Reading Assessment shows that the NRP has had some success in improving reading skills of students in Chichewa and English, and especially for those students in the Standard 4. Implementing successfully at a national scale requires that all partners have had to coordinate and collaborate with each other, with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) in the lead. This panel includes representatives from the MoEST and NRP implementation partners discussing their roles in supporting the NRP and sharing lessons around their approach, achievements, and challenges as they collaborate to get all children learning. The combined experiences of the different partners will be useful for other projects, organizations, and governments who are looking to make a wide-scale change in their education systems.

Despite successes in improving access to primary education, the Malawi education system has struggled to produce high levels of learning. The country has consistently ranked at or near the bottom in regional learning assessments, and an Early Grade Reading Assessment conducted in 2010 showed that 76 percent of Standard 2 learners could not identify any letters. To address the low reading performance, The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) partnered with the Government of Malawi to pilot several projects aimed at improving reading performance. The lessons from these pilot projects led to the development of a National Reading Strategy (NRS) and a National Reading Program (NRP). With support from USAID, the NRP’s goal is to improve the reading skills of all students in Chichewa and English in the first four years of primary school. It does this through reforms to the curriculum, teacher professional development and coaching, development and distribution of teaching and learning materials, continuous assessment and remediation, and targeted support for learners. USAID supports the NRP by providing finance and technical assistance through several activities including MERIT: Malawi Early Grade Reading Improvement Activity (MERIT), Yesani Ophunzira (YESA), Strengthening Early Grade Reading in Malawi (SEGREM) and Reading for All Malawi (REFAM). This is the recording of the #vCIES 2020 conference session, which includes representatives from the MoEST and NRP implementation partners discussing their roles in supporting the NRP and sharing lessons around their approach, achievements, and challenges as they collaborate to get all children learning. The combined experiences of the partners will be useful for other projects, organizations, and governments who are looking to make a wide-scale change in their education systems.

Recording of #vCIES 2020 conference panel presentation entitled: Effectiveness of Coaching as a Teacher Professional Development Strategy in low-income countries

The central role that the school and classroom environment or ‘school climate’ plays in social and emotional learning (SEL) is well documented, albeit mostly from US-based studies. RTI International sought to understand how schools in Malawi and Uganda organized themselves to provide positive and supportive places for children to learn and to develop socially and emotionally. The narratives captured in this study help explain how teacher behaviors and school culture serve to nurture social and emotional (SE) skills. Teachers, students, parents, and school management committee (SMC) members discussed the importance of teacher encouragement, friendliness and approachability, appreciation, understanding of and listening to student viewpoints, and modeling of cooperative teacher–teacher interactions to support SEL. School qualities identified as important for SEL included cooperation, student clubs and sports, a violence-free environment, freedom of expression, and commitment to equality. The findings yield insights into what schools can do to develop a culture of SEL, in and outside the classroom.

The Early Grade Reading Barometer is an interactive dashboard that lets you: - SEE an overview of how well students are reading, the percentage of struggling readers, and how comprehension is associated with reading fluency. - VIEW information about student performance on EGRA subtasks. See how outcomes vary by key student and school characteristics. - EXPLORE how different EGRA subtasks are related to one another. View graphic displays of these relationships. - CHOOSE a target oral reading fluency benchmark, and see information on how many students are meeting the targeted benchmark now and how the percentage of students meeting the benchmark value could change over time. - SEE how countries compare with each other with respect to student outcomes on EGRA assessments and progress towards meeting UN SDG Goal 4. - REVIEW the impact of interventions aimed at improving the fundamental reading skills of students. - COMPARE how the distributions for selected EGRA subtasks have changed or remained the same over time.

This study sought to identify the factors in the organizational culture and environment of a small sample primary schools in Malawi and Uganda that make them more (or less) conducive to children’s social and emotional development. The research team postulated that social and emotional learning are not products of the implementation of an “SEL” curriculum, but rather are inherently dependent on and result from the nature of the school climate.

RTI conducted a small pilot study in Malawi and Uganda to identify the factors in the organizational culture and environment of primary schools that make them more (or less) conducive to children’s social and emotional development. The research team postulated that social and emotional learning are not products of the implementation of an “SEL” curriculum, but rather are inherently dependent on and result from the nature of the school climate.

This presentation introduces the panel of authors who presented at CIES 2019 about their chapter of the book.

Cultivating Dynamic Educators: Case Studies in Teacher Behavior Change in Africa and Asia responds to growing recognition by international education professionals, policy makers, and funding partners of the need for qualified teachers and interest in the subject of teacher professional development (also referred to as “teacher behavior change”). The book responds to important questions that are fundamental to improving teaching quality by influencing teaching practice. These questions include: How do we provide high-quality training at scale? How do we ensure that training transfers to change in practice? What methods are most cost-effective? How do we know what works? The book includes case studies from seven countries--Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Nigeria, Philippines and Zambia--describing different approaches to teacher behavior change and illustrates how specific implementation choices were made for each context. Individual chapters document lessons learned as well as methodologies used for discerning lessons. The key conclusion is that no single effort is enough on its own; teacher behavior change requires a system-wide view and concerted, coordinated inputs from a range of stakeholders.