This success story highlights the experience of a early grade math teacher and textbook writer. She outlines the development of age-appropriate requirements and standards for students first and then, once those are set, write teacher guides and student textbooks. Before starting work on the teacher guide, the Program developed the topic scopes and sequences. The teacher guides were then designed to give teachers clear instructions on the lessons. With help of the teacher guides, the teachers will know how to begin the lesson, how to connect the topics, how to continue, what problems or unexpected questions may occur, and how to guide and assist students. Additionally, they incorporated more practical examples and problem-solving tools.

The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program is supporting the Ministry of Public Education to update its English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum through the procurement, adaptation, and piloting of Cambridge University Press teacher guides, student textbooks, and student workbooks in two regions—Sirdaryo and Namangan. Thanks to teachers’ active engagement and participation in this piloting of EFL materials, the Program will be able to finalize the teacher guides for national rollout during the 2022/2023 school year.

The Government of Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Public Education embarked on an ambitious set of education reforms within the general secondary education system that covers grades 1 to 11. Among these reforms are the development of high-quality Student Standards that will give a solid foundation for all other curriculum products and instruction. In partnership with the Ministry of Public Education, the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program conducted the Product Review Orientation Workshop for Student Standards to prepare approximately 50 educators from across Uzbekistan to undertake a formal review of the new Student Standards for Uzbek Language Arts and Mathematics grades 1–4 and Information and Communications Technology grades 1–11 produced by the Program

The USDA-funded “McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program (FFE)” implemented by Mercy Corps (MC) in partnership with Research Triangle Institute (RTI) and the Borlaug Institute (BI) is a five-year project that is aimed at improving the literacy of school-age children and increasing the use of health, nutrition, and dietary practices among 100,000 students in primary grades 1-4 of 416 target schools and 100 public libraries in the Kyrgyz Republic. In May 2022, the USDA McGovern-Dole program conducted an Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) in target 50 schools. According to this assessment, about 30% of surveyed schools never hold extracurricular literacy activities with parents. Sixteen percent of interviewed students reported that they never read with someone at home. To address this critical issue, the USDA McGovern-Dole program is working with public libraries that are the centers for the development of literate modern citizens. The program builds their capacity and help them host events and activities that promote student literacy and a culture of family reading. Additionally, the program supports public libraries by providing them reading materials, books developed by local authors and illustrators, and methodological guidelines. The books are age- and reading level-appropriate. The methodological guidelines include community engagement strategies such as collaborating with parents, teachers, and community organizations to raise awareness about the importance of reading. The guidelines also cover organizing reading events, summer reading camps, book fairs, and literary festivals to celebrate reading and literacy. The project delivered about 80,000 Kyrgyz and Russian books to 100 target public libraries. Public Libraries are centers for the development of literate modern citizens. And to strengthen the capacity of the schools and public librarians, the program conducted summer camps in 64 target schools and 100 public libraries. More than 1,700 early grade students participated in the reading summer camps.

It was only over a decade ago that data on dismal learning outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) shook the international education field out of its complacency with rising enrollment rates. The organizations and researchers that led this protest catalyzed a global shift toward prioritizing effective learning as the ultimate goal of education. However, acts of protest or disruption occur in a single point in time, whereas the transformations they advocate for are the labor of many years. Such is the case of the call to action to address the learning crisis. In the past decade, donor agencies like USAID have partnered with ministries of education in LMICs to design and implement programs at scale based on evidence of what works to improve foundational skills. A recent retrospective on the past ten years of USAID early grade reading programming (EnCompass LLC & MCI [2021]. Ten Years of USAID Early Grade Reading Programming: A Retrospective) estimates that USAID programs have improved reading outcomes for more than 7 million children and acknowledges tangible progress in the agency and its partners’ understanding of effective early reading instruction. The study also found that despite significant accomplishments, even the best-designed programs were hindered in their effectiveness by factors related to education systems’ low capacity to implement best practices at scale. Similarly, the Learning at Scale study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is examining some of the most effective large-scale early learning programs of the last ten years to understand the elements of their success. Learning at Scale researchers point out that improving learning at scale is hard because it usually requires working through the complex realities of government systems. Therefore, while the first chapter of the “learning crusade” yielded important lessons on what works to improve learning, there is still a lot to be learned about how to apply this knowledge to build effective government systems that ensure learning for all children. Case in point are government systems for continuous teacher professional development (TPD). It is well-known that better teaching is one of the fundamental interventions for improved learning outcomes. There is also a growing evidence base on the characteristics of effective TPD programs, as curated through initiatives like Learning at Scale and The Science of Teaching, also funded by the Gates Foundation. Among these characteristics are trainings that emphasize practice over theory and coaching programs based on structured coaching tools and frequent interaction with teachers. Another teacher support element that can be important to program success is school-based teacher communities-of-practice, which enable peer-to-peer feedback and opportunities to reflect on the ongoing application of instructional approaches. Both Learning at Scale and the retrospective study on USAID early reading programming observe a trend toward shorter but more frequent teacher training events that take place at the local level, in contrast to the massive national trainings of the past. The use of online content for teacher training is also on the rise, though preliminary findings from Learning at Scale suggest that an initial face-to-face training event continues to be essential. However, being able to identify the ingredients of effective teacher support does not automatically equate with an understanding of how to build a continuous TPD system that incorporates them. Neither does it mean that a TPD system built entirely on evidence-based best practices is guaranteed to succeed in improving learning outcomes. As more LMICs advance toward instituting standards and structured career ladders for the teaching profession, and toward developing mechanisms to increase the equity and efficiency of teacher training and support, it becomes increasingly important to identify effective models for implementing continuous TPD at scale. the panel will feature a USAID program in Jordan that exemplifies the desired result: a national-scale, comprehensive TPD model that is aligned with a broader policy on the teacher career path and is linked to a robust assessment data system that reinforces accountability for learning. It is the only program with solid evidence of positive changes in teaching practices that led to significant improvements in student outcomes.

In Tanzania, learning outcomes in early grades have remained stubbornly below expectations. Over a decade ago, the Tanzanian Institute for Education recognized that the curriculum for foundational learning needed to change. Textbooks were updated to reflect a more phonics-based strategy and the existing teacher workforce needed to be re-skilled. The Ministry of Education developed a framework for Continuous Professional Development for Practicing Teachers which focused on close-to-school delivery of new professional content. Unfortunately, the framework was not fully implemented, and instead large-scale face-to-face trainings remained the norm. Two USAID early learning programs at scale in Tanzania (one implemented from 2016 to 2021 and one that is currently ongoing) have focused on implementing the Ministry’s teacher professional development (TPD) framework to overcome three significant challenges: (i) ensuring that content did not get diluted by face-to-face cascade training; (ii) providing an incentive for teachers to apply content; (iii) ensuring that content could be adapted to context. Change is disruptive; old habits die hard – more so when there are financial incentives to retain the status quo. Moving from large scale ineffective face-to-face programs to a more holistic localized approach to TPD was met with protest and it has taken time to overcome the resistance from teachers. The first program adopted cluster-based delivery of training, with 4-5 schools in a cluster and local administrators or head teachers delivering the abbreviated training. Teachers no longer received per diems for attending centralized training. The cluster-based training was extended down to school-based communities of learning. These sessions provided an opportunity for teachers to share how they implemented new strategies in their classrooms – they provided contextualization to the content. However, not all schools or clusters had teachers who were able to adapt the content. The program introduced the idea of coaching, initially by Ward Education Officers (WEO) and then by head teachers, exemplary teachers, and eventually, peers. This allowed more experienced and knowledgeable colleagues to observe a teacher and provide feedback through a constructive dialogue. Because coaching is unfamiliar to the administrative structure in Tanzania it had to be included in the job descriptions of administrators and included in staff annual performance assessments. Despite initial resistance, this process has provided a clear incentive for teachers to apply the content that is administered in the training. Finally, to ensure training is not diluted in the translation through cascades, the follow-on USAID program introduced virtual delivery of key messages. To accommodate teachers with feature phone capabilities only, teachers access content through interactive voice instruction, calling a toll-free number and selecting to listen to a 2 minute “lesson”. With WEO support, over 90% of teachers complete a 5-lesson course. The course is aligned to content discussed at the Community of Learning and is reinforced through classroom observations. Using data collected at the beginning and end of each school year for the past two years, we show how this holistic approach to delivering professional development content has led to improved teaching practice and this in-turn has contributed to improved learning outcomes.

This presentation features the instructional design of a blended learning online course on formative assessment developed at the request of the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd), under the USAID/Philippines All Children Reading task order. In 2020, DepEd, through the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP), issued a policy aimed at strengthening the quality of TPD. The policy calls for several transformations, including the use of a wider range of learning modalities, such as job-based learning and teacher communities of practice; the adoption of a wider range of delivery platforms, such as online and blended learning; and the immediate application of TPD lessons in classrooms. The adoption of the policy has been slow and there are few exemplars of approved courses that meet these requirements. The challenge was to design a learning experience for teachers that not only exemplified these requirements but was also flexible enough to adapt to the myriad school contexts in the Philippines and was ready to be taken to scale by regional DepEd offices―without donor support―before the closeout of USAID funding for this activity.

Over 91% of the total student population worldwide has been affected due to school closures caused by COVID-19, according to UNESCO. How can the system ensure education of the country that every student has equal access to quality education during the crisis? Important role of teachers. Help students cope with and understand the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Encourage students to continue learning despite the closure of schools. This guide is for teachers. Support to students needs to continue while physical attendance at schools is completely or partially prohibited. Able to engage their students in various distance learning methods.

This reference document is a companion to the Language Complexity Study conducted by RTI International under the All Children Reading–Philippines project in 2020. The study was a secondary analysis of Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) data at multiple time points, looking specifically at the effect of language complexity on reading acquisition of second and third languages (L2 and L3, respectively). The study used the 2013 and 2019 National EGRA data sets to analyze performance according to categories of language complexity based on syllabic complexity, orthographic depth, and other related items. The study was guided by the methodology described by Brunette et al. (2019), who studied the effects of language complexity on reading outcomes in Uganda. The languages selected for analysis were those among the officially supported mother tongue (MT) languages of instruction in the Philippines. Analysts assessed whether the level of complexity was in any way predictive of the average increase or decrease in L2 and L3 scores across schools as measured in 2019 (provided there were schools that reported using MT in 2019, which was not the case for three of the languages: Chavacano, Ivatan, and Sambal.

This study uses national Grade (G) 3 Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) data from 2013, when G3 students learned to read in Filipino and English rather than a mother tongue, and comparable data from 2019, when G3 students would have, according to policy, first learned to read in their mother tongue. The data were used to better understand the role of L1 complexity in L2 and L3 reading acquisition. Sample: 241 schools; 232 schools were the same in 2013 and 2019. Final sample used for analysis: 2,264 G3 students in 2019 and 2,267 G3 students in 2013. Children were assessed in Filipino (L2) and English (L3). Secondary analysis of the data set looked at reading performance and changes in reading performance according to language complexity.