Briefs

Implementing mother-tongue based education in a multilingual context like the Philippines requires a full appreciation of the many languages spoken across communities and schools and among students and their teachers. DepEd’s Learner Information System which assigns a language to students when they are registered fails to capture a true picture of the languages students speak, primarily because it relies on the teacher to select the language assigned to each student. For example, in Region V, most teachers simply assign “Bikol” to their students. The USAID-funded ABC+ project deployed a computerized language identification tool in region V and VI to more accurately assess students and teachers individually and thus identify the primary and secondary languages that they speak.

Wanting to support effective learning in the early grades of school in a linguistically diverse country such as the Philippines it is important answer some basic questions, such as: • What languages do children come to school speaking? • Do children have more than one language that they can use when they start school? • What languages do teachers speak? • And how well do students’ and teachers’ languages match? Data from different sources is used to answers these questions.

POLICY BRIEF: Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE)

It is essential that the Government of Liberia has the skills and resources to monitor and assess their schools, students, and teachers as part of an evidenced-based education system on the road to self-reliance. Read Liberia maintained a focus on assessment and data use—not only to improve classroom-based instruction and equip school leadership with the knowledge and tools they need to foster quality education, but also to build the capacity of county and district officers in USAID’s six priority counties.

Setting benchmarks or standards that clearly state expectations about how well students or teachers should be performing on various skills at each stage of education and then collecting data to monitor these skills enables governments to see how individuals and education systems overall are progressing toward the goal of improved learning. This information allows governments to identify where improvements are needed and to chart progress year-to-year and against global standards. So how did Read Liberia do it? Read this brief to find out more!

Read Liberia has had considerable positive impact on students’ reading performance. This success story outlines the key activities Read Liberia has undertaken with the MOE to sustain EGR results beyond the life of the Activity.

How to effectively promote SEL development among children and their parents during school closures was a challenge for Read Liberia and implementing partners across the world. Read this brief to learn about the innovative ways Read Liberia fostered social and emotional development during COVID through its Teach by Radio Program.

Liberian public schools closed in March 2020, and the MOE Teach by Radio program ran from March 30 through June 30, 2020. Drawing upon its existing materials, Read Liberia developed and recorded a series of 30-minutes lessons covering key components of early grade literacy and language arts instruction, including phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and grammar. In response to an MOE initiative to support students’ psychosocial needs during this global pandemic, Read Liberia also wove into these radio lessons opportunities for students to reflect on their feelings and find productive ways to handle them. Read this brief to learn more!

This material discusses the various technological innovations the USAID/Read Liberia Activity employed for data collection, teacher training, assessment, coaching and even virtual support to teachers during COVID.

This material highlights the eleven tasks Read Liberia coaches performed to support teachers and schools.