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While most international educational development projects are engaged in capacity development, trainings rarely have enough depth to result in lasting changes in the capacity of local stakeholders. The case of the Nigeria Centre for Reading, Research and Development (NCRRD) at Bayero University Kano used a different model. Six NCRRD faculty spent six months at Florida State University (FSU) attending courses on literacy and elementary education, attending grant writing trainings and reading seminars, observing literacy instruction in schools, and participating in conferences. After returning to Nigeria, the fellows were mentored by FSU faculty through the stages of a research project; all fellows subsequently submitted articles to international journals. FSU supported the administrative structures of NCRRD, assisting in the development of financial and compliance infrastructure. The outcomes of the partnership included (1) the establishment of the NCRRD as a center for excellence in reading in West Africa, (2) the publication of contextually relevant literature to inform policymakers and practitioners, and (3) the establishment of graduate programs in reading. This paper discusses the challenges faced by the institutions during the establishment of the NCRRD and makes recommendations for institutions interested in developing long-term international partnerships.

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020 has had consequences for children's education globally, as schools closed and parents found themselves playing the role of teacher, alongside their economic and other community roles. This study aims to explore the experiences of parents in northern Nigeria as they attempted to support their primary school children's reading development while schools were closed. We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 15 middle- and low-socioeconomic status parents in Kano State, Nigeria. Using thematic analysis, we identified challenges faced by parents as well as unexpected positive effects of the pandemic. Challenges included the lack of textbooks and other appropriate learning materials, time pressures, and lack of knowledge of strategies to teach reading. However, parents noted that the extra time they had spent together during lockdowns had led to improved relationships in the household, and that they had been able to spend more time discussing moral development and discipline with their children. In summary, this sample of parents believed that the pandemic would not have severe impacts on their own children, as they were making efforts to support learning at home. However, they had concerns for children in Nigeria more broadly, particularly those whose parents were not literate, as they would have little access to learning outside school. Recommendations for the Nigerian government and other stakeholders include making learning materials available for home use, increasing the use of educational radio and television programming, and developing simple literacy assessments for parents to monitor children's progress.

With the purpose of ending wars, international organizations and governments promote reintegration projects that seek to transform combatants affiliated with illegal armed groups into citizens through education. The assumption behind these efforts is that through education, ex-combatants will become economically independent, overcome marginalization, experience personal transformations, and integrate into communities. This paper questions this optimistic narrative of education by highlighting the differentiated meanings of education for ex-combatants reintegrating in urban Colombia. Listening to the voices of ex-combatants who have engaged in technical and vocational education programs, this paper compares policy narratives with ex-combatants' narratives regarding the role of education in the reintegration process. The analysis reveals how for ex-combatants, education is a complex social practice that redistributes resources and contributes to positive psychosocial and empowerment transformations. At the same time, it is a process of insertion into an individualistic system and adaptation to unequal participation within the country's socio-economic hierarchy.

In this study, we examine the association between attending a Non-Formal Learning Center (NLFC) in Sokoto and Bauchi states for at least nine months and reading outcomes for out-of-school children (OOSC) who are mainstreamed into formal schooling by grade 4 (P4). We use Hierarchical Linear Modeling with data from 1,116 pupil Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRA) and pupil surveys collected by the NEI Plus program. Overall, NFLC-mainstreamed pupils read at the same low levels as their peers who have received formal schooling, despite having had disruptions to their education. Given this evidence, policymakers should consider maintaining the NFLCs to jumpstart OOSC into school. Keywords non-formal learning, out of school children, Africa, Nigeria, literacy, early grade reading, mainstreaming into formal schooling, Introduction In 2014, 34.2 million children were out of school in sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO Institute for Statistics [UIS] & Global Education Monitoring Report [GEMR], 2016). This represents more than half [...]

Pre-service teacher education (PSTE) has largely been excluded from investments in foundational literacy and numeracy in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This approach has consequences for sustainability due to the central role of PSTE in supporting lasting educational change. In this literature review, we examine key challenges facing PSTE in LMICs and draw on the evidence to suggest areas for teacher educators and stakeholders to focus attention--including curriculum revisions to make PSTE more applied and relevant, enhanced focus on the practicum, and high-quality professional development for teacher educators--to promote alignment of content and pedagogy with evidence-based practices. Keywords pre-service teacher education, literacy, numeracy, primary school, developing countries, Introduction Over the last two decades, actors in international education development have noted that there is a global crisis in education in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). Though school attendance has [...]

Contextualizing the role of teachers in social-emotional learning (SEL) in Malawi, we examine how teachers' "comfort" with, "commitment" to, and perceived school "culture" toward SEL relate to their actual teaching of it. Using surveys from 432 primary school teachers (20-60 years old), we found teacher "comfort" and supportive school "culture" were positively related to integration of SEL into classroom instruction, while "commitment" had no statistically significant relationship with implementation. We explore plausible explanations for these findings by interviewing 42 teachers. Together, our findings highlight the importance of teacher support systems and cultural compatibility of the curriculum for successful SEL implementation.

High quality teaching and learning materials (TLM) are essential for early literacy learning. The purpose of this study was to determine if the TLM used in schools in Kano State, Nigeria, were culturally appropriate, gender balanced and relevant to the Nigeria Universal Basic Education Curriculum, with particular emphasis on primary reading. Using a researcher-adapted rubric, lesson plans, textbooks and reading books from 10 private and public schools located in urban and rural areas in Kano were evaluated. The TLM were rated as moderately relevant to the Primary 3 English studies curriculum, which focuses on literacy development. However, the materials were generally not culturally responsive to this region and displayed only emergent gender balance. We conclude with recommendations for policy and practice, including the greater involvement of stakeholders from this region in materials development to support early literacy teaching and learning.

Reintegration programs for ex-combatants around the globe promote their technical and vocational education and training (TVET). The aim is to help them develop skills, assume new social roles, and gain community acceptance, yet the experiences and perceptions of the ex-combatants who participate in these programs have been little explored. Thus, it is not known whether this group finds access to TVET useful in building new social networks, which is a critical factor in preventing further violence and achieving social cohesion. This in-depth interview study with female and male ex-combatants from Medellin, Colombia, who are at various stages of TVET engagement examined their perceptions of whether and how TVET contributed to their social reintegration. The findings illustrate that some forms of TVET promoted psychosocial recovery and build social bonds, whereas other types reinforced isolation and segregation. This study also found that the TVET programs overlooked the ex-combatants' limitations on socializing that were imposed by their violent environments and feelings of stigmatization. These findings suggest a need to complement education programs for economic development with approaches that help develop social bonds and trust between ex-combatants and their communities.

Teachers in northern Nigeria face large class sizes that lead to challenges in successfully teaching children to read. In this study, we documented primary grades classes with as many as 160 children. We used in-depth interviews with 20 teachers in Kano State to explore how teachers approached reading instruction, as these numbers preclude the instructional approaches supported by the literature, such as regular formative assessment, differentiated instruction, and frequent interactions with text. Most teachers reported using grouping to teach reading, while some relied on instructional materials or teacher-centered approaches to attract student attention. Assessment was largely at the group level rather than individual; teachers generally lacked a detailed understanding of students' reading development. Classroom management and discipline were ongoing concerns. We conclude with recommendations on ways to build on teachers' practices in ways that align their pedagogy with evidence-based approaches, such as more purposefully grouping to allow for differentiated instruction.

Print-rich environments are critical to early literacy development. This study profiled how teachers organise literacy environments in 21 early-primary classrooms (grade 1-3) in rural Mozambique. We focused on two dimensions of classroom literacy environments--physical environments (e.g. access to literacy resources, visibility of print materials, presence of writing space and tools) and instructional environments (such as lesson structure, teaching methods and techniques, instructional support)--and their interactions in the daily work of Mozambican teachers in classroom settings by using classroom observations, teacher interviews, and teacher and school administrative data. Our study revealed strengths (e.g. teacher efforts in developing print materials) and weaknesses (e.g. restricting students' independent use of teacher-produced print materials) in teachers' organisation of literacy environments in their classrooms. More importantly, synergistic relationships between the two domains of classroom literacy environments were demonstrated. Policy and research implications of these findings are discussed.

The present study explored the role of vocabulary and decoding skills in predicting reading comprehension, utilizing data from 322 first- grade children from four elementary schools in Kenya. The children were administered a comprehensive battery of tests to assess pseudo-word reading skills, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and receptive vocabulary in English and Kiswahili. The results showed that receptive vocabulary and pseudo-word reading in English played a significant role in English reading comprehension. Kiswahili decoding explained a statistically significant unique variance of Kiswahili reading comprehension. An examination of the cross-linguistic variability showed that pseudo-word decoding in English and Kiswahili explained unique variance in reading comprehension cross-linguistically, while receptive vocabulary did not explain additional variance in reading comprehension across languages. These results add to the important evidence of receptive language skills and decoding skills in reading comprehension among multilingual children from low-middle income countries.

Improving literacy outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa is a central focus of national governments, donors and non-governmental organisations alike, as evidenced by the inclusion of literacy as a target in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4. Though significant international development funding has been devoted to teacher training in the region, little evidence is available on how teachers improve their literacy instruction in practice. This study profiles how 20 teachers in eight schools in rural Mozambique translated training in literacy instruction into classroom instruction. We used three domains of teacher knowledge -- content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge -- to analyse interview and observation data. While some aspects of training translated into classroom practices, including explicit literacy instruction and use of visual aids, teachers rarely used activities for oral language development or reading comprehension, which are critical to producing skilled readers. We discuss the research and policy implications of these findings.

Reading skills are foundational for daily lives, academic achievement, and careers. In this study, we systematically reviewed literacy interventions in low- and middle-income countries, and estimated their effects on children's reading skills using a meta-analytic approach. A total of 67 studies (N = 213,464) from 32 countries found in various databases (e.g., PsycINFO, ERIC) and sources (e.g., United States Agency for International Development) met our inclusion criteria. The results revealed an overall effect of 0.30 across various literacy outcomes. Effects varied for different outcomes, such that largest effects were found in emergent literacy skills (e.g., 0.40) and the smallest effects in reading comprehension (0.25) and oral language skills (0.20). Effects also varied as a function of other features such as teacher training support.

Background/Context: Low-cost private schools (LCPSs) represent a large and growing share of schools in many low- and middle-income countries, including Kenya. In some Nairobi neighborhoods, more than half of children attend LCPSs, despite policies providing free access to public education. Parents generally choose LCPSs because they believe they are higher quality, although there is little conclusive evidence supporting this belief. Objective: In this study, we aim to add to the evidence available on the comparison between LCPSs and public schools by using student gains over time as our outcome, thus controlling for the initial level of achievement and instead examining improvement. Participants: The randomly selected longitudinal sample was composed of 326 children attending 47 LCPSs and government schools in several of Nairobi's geographic zones. These children's literacy and numeracy outcomes were tracked over two academic years to determine their learning gains over time. Research Design: We used residual gain scores--as opposed to cross-sectional measures--in English and Kiswahili literacy and mathematics, to compare the outcomes of students attending LCPSs and public primary schools across the first and second grades. We discuss how these schools impacted achievement over time. Findings/Results: We found that these LCPSs did not produce significantly higher student growth than public schools under the status quo condition. However, among schools participating in an instructional improvement intervention supported by the United States Agency for International Development, LCPSs increased performance more than public schools in English, Kiswahili, and mathematics, with the largest differences in English. Conclusions/Recommendations: These findings offer a cautionary note to the rapid expansion of LCPSs in low-resource settings. The fees paid to LCPSs by low-income households are often burdensome for families and, in some contexts, may not be worth the trade-offs that families make to afford them. On the other hand, the findings also suggest that low-cost private school teachers may respond more effectively than public school teachers to project-based support.

Background: Social and emotional learning (SEL) positively impacts children's school achievement and adult productivity. Successful implementation of SEL relies on teachers' pedagogical beliefs and practices. Aims: We examined whether the "Teachers' SEL Belief Scale" designed in the United States is adoptable in low-income countries such as Malawi in response to a growing interest in teacher practices in SEL but a lack of research instruments in these countries. Samples: The data used in this study were from 432 teachers working in 34 randomly selected primary schools in Zomba, a rural district in Malawi. Methods: We used multiple-group confirmatory factory analysis to investigate the factor structure and the invariance of the adapted scale across teachers with different characteristics such as gender and training experience in SEL. When invariant, we compared group mean differences among teachers in our sample by gender and training experience. Results: We found that the "Teachers' SEL Belief Scale" measured a similar construct of pedagogical perceptions of SEL among the sampled teachers, and it functioned equivalently across teachers with different genders and training experiences. Female teachers had lower perceived institutional support for SEL instruction compared to male teachers. Untrained teachers had lower levels of pedagogical comfort as well as perceived support for SEL compared to trained teachers. Conclusions: Our findings validate the adaptability of the "Teachers' SEL Belief Scale" in low-income contexts such as Malawi. We did not find evidence of systematic bias relative to group membership. In addition, significantly lower pedagogical comfort and institutional support among female and untrained teachers suggest areas for policy intervention to improve teacher performance in SEL in Malawi.

Background: Governments in low-income countries and donors have invested the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in enhancing reading outcomes. Although reliable measures exist to assess emergent literacy skills in international contexts, there is little consensus on the assessment of reading comprehension. Methods: Using data from 5,389 Kenyan children attending low-cost private schools, we compared the reading comprehension measure from the Early Grade Reading Assessment to two alternatives. We examined relationships among children's outcome scores and the degree to which children's scores on the three measures drew on the same skills. Results: Scores on the three assessments were strongly correlated, and the assessments appeared to draw on the same abilities. The patterns observed in the exploratory factor analyses held for subgroups, including fluent and nonfluent readers and across testing languages. Conclusion: The alternatives did not provide more information on reading comprehension, and we therefore recommend continued use of the Early Grade Reading Assessment standard measure.

While early childhood education has received increasing attention in the developing world in recent years, relatively little evidence is available from sub-Saharan Africa on its effects on child development and subsequent school enrolment. We use a prospective case-control design to evaluate the developmental impact of a community-based early childhood center in an urban area in Zambia. Comparing 40 children attending the center to 40 children not attending the center from the same community, we find that center attendance was associated with significantly better performance in an assessment of task orientation, and was also weakly associated with increased letter familiarity. We also observed higher performance among center students on tests of receptive language and pencil-related fine motor skills. These associations were, however, smaller and not statistically significant. We conducted a follow-up one year after the initial assessment, when children were seven years old and should have been in first grade. At follow-up, 27% of non-attendees were not yet enrolled in primary school, compared to just 11% of center students, suggesting that participation in early education encourages a timely transition into first grade.

Indonesia has dramatically increased school enrolment at the secondary level over the past several decades, as reflected in national statistics. However, significant variation in enrolment rates remains across regions and genders. In some areas, nearly all youth complete secondary school; in others fewer than half attend. This study investigates the reasons for secondary school dropout in Banten and Aceh, two provinces of Indonesia with lower-than-average secondary school enrolment rates. We interviewed 28 out-of-school youth and conducted focus groups and observations at non-formal education programs serving dropouts. We find that high costs for secondary school were the overwhelming reason for dropout, with a subset of boys also reporting behavioural issues as a contributing factor. While costs affected adolescent boys and girls equally, the options facing them after dropout differed sharply. The findings point to the need for easier paths back into formal education for youth who have dropped out.

Low-cost private schools (LCPS) are widespread in Kenya, particularly in urban areas. This study examines the reasons that parents send children to fee-charging schools in a context of free public primary education. Drawing on parent survey and interview data, as well as interviews with national policy makers, we found that parents who chose LCPS for their children were more driven by quality concerns than were public school parents. We also present data on the costs of the school types, compared to household income. Despite being termed 'low cost', the fees charged by schools primarily serving the poor were often a heavy burden on families. We conclude with recommendations for maximising the impact of LCPS on educational access and quality.

Despite increased investment in early childhood care and education (ECCE) globally, little is known about its effectiveness in low-income countries. Using kernel exact matching within a national sample of 1,623 Zambian 6-year-olds, we test the associations between ECCE participation and seven domains of children's school readiness. We find ECCE participation to be significantly and positively predictive of children's receptive vocabulary, letter naming, reasoning, fine motor, executive function, and task performance skills (d = 0.20-0.65). Although ECCE predicted better outcomes across program types and dosage levels, associations between ECCE participation and school readiness were descriptively if not significantly larger for children attending nonprofit (versus governmental or private) programs and for those attending ECCE between three and five hours per day (versus those attending less than three or six or more hours per day). Implications of these findings, particularly for the 68% of Zambian children who remain out of ECCE, are discussed.

We evaluated a program to improve literacy instruction on the Kenyan coast using training workshops, semiscripted lesson plans, and weekly text-message support for teachers to understand its impact on students' literacy outcomes and on the classroom practices leading to those outcomes. The evaluation ran from the beginning of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2 in 51 government primary schools chosen at random, with 50 schools acting as controls. The intervention had an impact on classroom practices with effect sizes from 0.57 to 1.15. There was more instruction with written text and more focus on letters and sounds. There was a positive impact on three of four primary measures of children's literacy after two years, with effect sizes up to 0.64, and school dropout reduced from 5.3% to 2.1%. This approach to literacy instruction is sustainable, and affordable and a similar approach has subsequently been adopted nationally in Kenya.

Pedagogical strategies intended for monolingual classes may not adequately address the educational needs and aspirations of culturally and linguistically diverse learners, as multilingual and bilingual learners differ from monolinguals. This article sought to understand multilingual teachers' pedagogical approaches to helping non-speakers of the language of instruction learn initial reading (decoding) skills in diverse classes of Lusaka District of Zambia. Qualitative data was collected through face-to-face interviews, focus groups, and lesson observations with 23 Grade One teachers. Data collected were transcribed and qualitative content analysis was performed through a meaning condensation process. Findings of the study revealed that teachers in multilingual classes used translanguaging, bilingual materials, remediation and reading interventions strategies to teach literacy among early graders. Further, parents, multilingual teachers, and bilingual learners were also used as resources in multilingual classes. The study recommended that the government should develop and implement a strong simultaneous bilingual or multilingual literacy programme to reflect community languages and avoid imposing monoglossic language ideologies across schools. Early grade teachers should be allowed to use diverse pedagogical approaches in the teaching of reading in multilingual classes within the mainstream curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This participatory action research project conducted through the USAID-funded Transforming Teacher Education activity examined how two pre-service teacher education programs in Zambia prepared teachers for primary reading instruction. College and university lecturers and in-service primary grade teachers participated in focus groups and interviews. We identified gaps between training and practice within the framework of Zambia's language of instruction policy. We find that pre-service teacher preparation was generally theoretical and not practical. Opportunities for practice were limited, leading to teachers lacking required competencies and using outdated approaches in schools. We suggest strategies to improve the alignment of pre-service teacher education and classroom instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in sub-Saharan Africa investigating the effect of mother tongue (MT) literacy instruction at medium scale is limited. A randomized controlled trial of MT literacy instruction was implemented in 2013 and 2014 as part of the Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) Initiative in Kenya. We compare the effect of two treatment groups--the base PRIMR program teaching literacy in English and Kiswahili and the PRIMR-MT program, which taught literacy in English, Kiswahili, and mother tongue--in two different language environments. Implementation of the MT program faced challenges because many educators were not speakers of the languages, some communities resisted mother tongue instruction, and some areas were more language heterogeneous. Effect sizes on MT literacy averaged between 0.3 and 0.6 standard deviations. The base PRIMR program also increased MT learning outcomes in some measures but had smaller effects than the PRIMR-MT program in oral reading fluency and comprehension.

Despite rapid growth in literacy-related programmes and evaluation in sub-Saharan Africa, little critical attention has been paid to the relevance of assumptions that underlie existing assessment methods. This study focuses on the issue of timing in the assessment of oral reading fluency, a critical component of successful reading (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), 2000; Pikulski & Chard, 2005). Within the context of the Primary Math and Reading Initiative, a randomized controlled trial of several instructional interventions in Kenya, timed and untimed Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) oral reading fluency and reading comprehension tasks were administered to 4385 students in 95 government and 125 informal schools. Using the data from the EGRA--whose administration has expanded within sub-Saharan Africa recently--we found that students did not perform significantly better on the assessments when they had more time. This pattern largely held when we examined the effects disaggregated over student ability level. This suggests that timed assessments, which are faster to administer and logistically easier, are appropriate for use in Kenya.

Past research suggests robust positive associations between household socioeconomic status and children's early cognitive development in Western countries. Relatively little is known about these relations in low-income country settings characterized by economic adversity, high prevalence of malnutrition and infectious disease, and relatively lower school enrollment. The present study develops and empirically evaluates an adapted model of early childhood development using a sample of 2,711 Zambian 6-year-olds. Early learning in and out of the home was found to explain much of the relation between socioeconomic status and children's cognitive skills, including language, nonverbal reasoning, and executive function. Child height-for-age (a proxy for overall nutritional status and health) was also predictive of children's cognitive skills and both early and on-time school enrollment. Implications for global child development, intervention, and future work are discussed.

In recent years, the Education for All movement has focused more intensely on the quality of education, rather than simply provision. Many recent and current education quality interventions focus on literacy, which is the core skill required for further academic success. Despite this focus on the quality of literacy instruction in developing countries, little rigorous research has been conducted on critical issues of assessment. This analysis, which uses data from the Primary Math and Reading Initiative (PRIMR) in Kenya, aims to begin filling this gap by addressing a key assessment issue--should literacy assessments in Kenya be administered orally or silently? The authors compared second-grade students' scores on oral and silent reading tasks of the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) in Kiswahili and English, and found no statistically significant differences in either language. They did, however, find oral reading rates to be more strongly related to reading comprehension scores. Oral assessment has another benefit for programme evaluators--it allows for the collection of data on student errors, and therefore the calculation of words read correctly per minute, as opposed to simply words read per minute. The authors therefore recommend that, in Kenya and in similar contexts, student reading fluency be assessed via oral rather than silent assessment.

Background: Early childhood malaria is often fatal, but its impact on the development and education of survivors has not received much attention. Malaria impacts cognitive development in a number of ways that may impact later educational participation. Aims: In this study, we examine the long-term educational effects of preventing early childhood malaria. Does intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) during early childhood reduce the risk of dropout? If so, does this effect vary by school type--government school versus madrassa? Sample: We use data from a 2001 follow-up of a 1985-1987 malaria prevention randomized controlled trial in the Gambia. The sample consists of 562 youth born between 1981 and 1986. Methods: We use discrete-time survival analysis to identify the impact of the intervention on dropout risk over time. Results: We find that IPT has a positive impact on dropout for government school students, but not for madrassa attendees. The difference was striking: in government schools, the odds of dropout in the treatment group were one third of those in the control group. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that preventing early childhood malaria may reduce dropout at a relatively low cost. In this intervention, the drugs cost less than one dollar per year per child. While IPT is no longer practised in many countries due to concerns over drug resistance, these results support the conclusion that any type of effective malaria control programme protecting young children, such as consistent and correct use of bed nets, could improve educational attainment in areas where malaria is prevalent.

This article examines the relationship of wartime experience and reintegration supports to students' risk of school dropout. It draws on longitudinal, mixed-methods data collected among children and youth in Sierra Leone from 2002 through 2008. The study finds that family financial support and perceived social support are positively associated with lower risk of dropout over time.