With the largest population and economy in Africa and the highest number of out of school children in the world, Nigeria is at a pivotal moment in its development. Educating its population, particularly its out-of-school population, will be critical to the country’s prosperity, say experts.

With parts of the country facing fragility, a lack of accountability, poor teacher quality, inadequate teacher support, weak links between schools and communities, and high absenteeism among teachers and learners, education reform will be challenging.

At this year’s Comparative and International Education Society Conference, experts discussed the challenges, recent gains and opportunities for Nigeria’s education sector, with a special focus on how early grade reading activities are being monitored and measured.

See below for excerpts from two of those panel discussions.

Coaching to improve literacy instruction

Evidence consistently shows that coaching is a valuable tool for teacher development in countries with abundant resources, but there is limited evidence to show how this approach is working in low- and middle-income countries, including Nigeria.

As early grade reading initiatives work toward national expansion, it is important to take an evidence-based look at the effectiveness of coaching in these type of environments, said experts at CIES.

“It is generally accepted in the literature and documented throughout the world that coaching works,” said Mark Anthony Hamilton, Senior Reading Advisor for the USAID-funded Northern Education Initiative Plus project during a panel on coaching.

Implemented by Creative Associates International, the Northern Education Initiative Plus is working to strengthen systems in Bauchi and Sokoto states to provide access to and improve the quality of education, particularly in early grade reading. It aims to improve reading outcomes for more than a million children.

Coaching is an important tool used by the project to strengthen local capacity. School support officers serve as coaches to early grade reading instructors and are critical to the success of this strategy.

“What we’re trying to do is get coaches to take a step back and really see if teachers re teaching and learners are learning,” said Hamilton.

However, despite being trained as coaches through the project, school support officers have largely reverted to administrative roles because of a lack of system capacity at the local government level.

The introduction of a Local Education Monitoring Approach has since helped identify gaps in teaching and learning inputs, raising awareness among stakeholders of the value of readily-available data to improve education outcomes. Yet, Hamilton noted that the quality of the LEMA data on coaching has relied too heavily on self-reporting.

Hamilton explained that a recent addition of tablet-based reporting tools for school support officers is beginning to address these issues while providing reliable data on coaching and other inputs in real time.

When combined, the Local Education Monitoring Approach and tech tools can provide much-needed information on state and local government capacities to support education quality. The results are both surprising and instructive, given the often-persistent misconceptions in Nigeria and internationally about the potential – or lack thereof – of technology to improve outcomes in poorly-resourced education systems.

The bottom line: Do invest in coaching. But be sure to provide resources and tools to monitor the success of coaching efforts and adapt as needed.

The problem with EGRA and the path forward

In another conference panel titled “National policy perspectives on learning assessment and the future of early grade reading in Nigeria,” Hamilton and education professionals from the Nigerian Ministry of Education, Universal Basic Education Commission, Chemonics and USAID discussed how early grade reading assessment is impacting the education space in Nigeria.

As reading becomes increasingly prominent in Nigeria’s national education policy dialogue, decision-makers are weighing how to best make use of early grade reading assessment (EGRA) to drive the policy reform dialogue and efforts to improve the access and quality of reading education.

Panelist Melissa Chiappetta of USAID reminded participants that: “The EGRA is only as good as the quality of the tool and the quality of the methodology.””

Chiappetta said that in her work across EGRA instruments she has seen, “that we suffer from [poor] quality in many places and because we’ve been so project-based oftentimes they are not comparable over time.”

Chiappetta recounted how, during a session she presented at earlier in the week, she had the audience read a passage from an early grade reading assessment and then take the comprehension test. In the room of around 40 people – all highly educated English speakers – only five got all the answers correct.

“We’re expecting grade two students to answer these questions. If we can’t do it ourselves, how can we expect them to?” she asked, highlighting the importance of instrument quality.

While there is room to improve EGRA, it is still an important tool. Chiappetta said that in Nigeria, and beyond, EGRA is allowing education specialists to think about language of instruction, helping to set benchmarks and inform policy adjustment.

The bottom line: EGRA is valuable and allows for education improvements as long as the tool and methodology are of high-quality.

In its ongoing effort to institutionalize early grade reading in Nigeria, the Northern Education Initiative Plus project trained a second cohort of education professionals on global best practices in basic literacy.

Twenty-two education experts working at state and federal levels in Nigeria were awarded certificates at a graduation ceremony held in Abuja. This second cohort of teacher educators, researchers and government education officials from across Nigeria successfully completed a five-month postgraduate course entitled, Literacy Skills in the Primary School: A Graduate Course for Teacher Educators.

Implemented by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Northern Education Initiative Plus activity in partnership with Florida State University, the program already graduated a first cohort of more than 20 professionals from the course in October 2017. Now certified in basic literacy, these professionals have skills to implement sustainable reading programs for primary school children throughout the country.

A broader effort to improve reading education

The early grade reading course is part of a wider strategy to implement reading programs across Nigeria, on a national scale. The course builds upon the innovative, early grade reading program Mu Karanta!/Let’s Read! that was introduced by the Northern Education Initiative Plus in 2016. So far, the program has supported learning to read and write, in Hausa and English languages, for nearly 500,000 primary school students in schools in Bauchi and Sokoto states.

Denise O’Toole, Director of Education programming for USAID in Nigeria, was on hand to congratulate and encourage the graduates to become “agents of change,” advocating for improved learning outcomes for children in reading. She added that the U.S. government will continue to support the government of Nigeria to enhance education, particularly in early grade reading.

“We hope your new membership into this important group of professionals will make a huge difference as we work towards a successful scholastic future for all Nigerian students,” she said.

Representing the Minister of Education, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council, Professor Ismail Junaidu, said the government of Nigeria is making a concerted effort to institutionalize early grade reading in Nigeria.

At the forefront of this effort is the institution’s leadership in developing a National Reading Framework, which draws upon the Mu Karanta!/Let’s Read! model for early grade reading in Bauchi and Sokoto states.

“Having a cadre of Nigerian professionals grounded in expertise and knowledge on reading will help us achieve this goal, as we want all states in Nigeria to implement reading programs,” Junaidu said.

Acting Chief of Party Nurudeen Lawal said the graduates will form professional learning communities in their various organizations. The course graduates will continue to work collaboratively through these new learning communities to improve reading skills in schools and influence education policy.

As part of the course requirements, participants observed classroom lessons, reviewed published articles on early grade reading, and conducted independent research projects.

Carrying the work forward

Following the graduation ceremony, the participants announced plans to form a new organization, the Early Grade Reading Association of Nigeria. The group will organize community outreach programs to promote reading across the country.

One of the graduates, Omale Allen Abduljabar, said the group had pledged to continue to advocate for early grade reading beyond their participation in the course.

“In my agency, I will stepdown the program to other units, but will also be part of a committee to monitor and evaluate how my fellow graduates are practicing skills they have acquired during the program,” he said.

Participants in the postgraduate program included education professionals from Bauchi and Sokoto State Ministries of Education, the State Universal Basic Education Boards, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council, the National Commission for Colleges of Education, the Universal Basic Education Commission and the National Commission for Mass Literacy.

In less than four years, USAID’s Northern Education Initiative Plus has made significant progress strengthening the implementation of early grade reading in Nigeria. The USAID-funded activity is achieving this goal through its support for the National Commission for Colleges of Education. The commission has pledged to integrate early grade reading into the Nigeria Certificate in Education curriculum for teacher educators. For its part, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council has begun the process of developing a National Reading framework for Nigeria, with technical support from the Northern Education Initiative Plus activity.

Nigeria’s Annual Education Conference brought together experts, advocates, international partners and policy implementers to discuss emerging issues affecting the quality of basic education in the country.

The conference – themed “Education for Self-Reliance” – included a panel highlighting work from the Northern Education Initiative Plus project, funded by U.S Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International and its partners.

The project seeks to improve reading skills for more than 1.4 million primary grade learners in Bauchi and Sokoto states, focusing on both formal and non-formal schools. It also works to expand access to education, a priority for USAID.

“We must ensure that every young person has access to education delivered in safe and nurtured environments. Strong partnership is key to long-lasting reforms in the education sector to create more dynamic citizens,” said Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S Embassy David Young while addressing more than 400 education experts.

He said since 2014, USAID has invested $91 million to implement education interventions that support young people in Nigerian schools. According to him, “people must have confidence in and be proud of the public school system.”

To sustain USAID’s contributions to the education system, Young explained that the Northern Education Initiative Plus is supporting Nigeria’s government to develop a National Reading Framework that provides a blueprint for how children learn to read.

The project builds children’s literacy in Hausa in first grade and ultimately transition to full English instruction in fourth grade. It has trained 1,350 teachers and distributed more than two million textbooks – helping to improve reading skills for about 500,000 children to date.

Strengthening government systems

The conference, which was hosted by the Federal Ministry of Education, included a session on systematic approaches to funding, accountability and autonomy as enablers of an improved learning outcomes.

Olakunle Odumosu, a technical consultant with the Northern Education Initiative Plus, presented on the State Education Account, a tool used to demonstrate resource allocation and utilization in the education sector and implemented by the Northern Education Initiative Plus. He noted that the tool allowed state governments to access consolidated data on its education spending, which is then used for effective decision making.

The Northern Education Initiative Plus utilized the State Education Account tool twice. States then used the findings to develop a medium-term sector strategy, prioritized funding for basic education, and included the process in its annual budget as part of its mechanism for demonstrating transparency in education financing.

“The State Education Account report now belongs to the states and they have used it as justification to prioritize funding for inputs in school systems that lead to improved learning outcomes such as teaching and learning materials,” Odumosu said.

Systems Strengthening Specialist for the Northern Education Initiative Plus Musa Salami gave recommendations for sustainability and accountability in education using best practices from the project.

Such practices included conducting an institutional capacity assessment of ministries, departments and agencies of education, supporting local government education authorities to develop capacity building plans using results of the assessment, and encouraging community participation in education.

He said these had resulted in institutionalizing major activities of the project such as printing and distributing reading textbooks, school monitoring and supervision and teacher professional development.

Eleven-year-old Zainab Auwal wants to be a doctor when she grows up. There aren’t many hospitals where she lives in Alkaleri local government area, and people must travel to the capital to access healthcare.

Zainab could not achieve her dream of practicing medicine by staying home to help her mother with household chores and only attending Islamic school. She begged her father to enroll her in school but he declined.

Many girls in Northern Nigeria are unable to access education, or they drop out of school at an early age due to a combination of cultural practices that encourage girls to stay at home or a lack of nearby educational facilities.

But Zainab was determined. When she heard about a non-formal learning center opened by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Northern Education Initiative Plus in her community, she approached her father again for permission to attend. This time he accepted when he learned she would spend only a few hours a week at the center and receive free textbooks.

“I was the first of nine children in my home to attend school,” she says.

Non-formal learning centers provide displaced or out-of-school children and youth with basic literacy and numeracy skills and psychosocial support in safe, supportive environments. Zainab studied these skills for nine months and took an exam at the end of the program that qualified her for admission into grade three in a formal school.

In three years, the Northern Education Initiative Plus project has provided abridged education programs to approximately 180,000 out-of-school-children like Zainab, including more than 73,000 girls, and facilitated their mainstreaming into formal schools. To ensure children received quality instruction, the project has distributed up to 800,000 textbooks covering topics such as literacy, numeracy and life skills.

After Zainab was admitted into the third grade in a formal school, she continued to benefit from the Northern Education Initiative Plus through its early grade reading program called Let’s Read! (Mu Karanta! in Hausa). Operating in formal schools, the reading program teaches children to read in Hausa in first grade and builds their skills to add English by second grade, ultimately transitioning to full English instruction in fourth grade.

For Zainab, going to school is a delight. Reading her books is even more fun.

“I love the stories in them. I cannot wait for my aunt to read with me when I get home,” she says.

About 80 percent of children in grades two and three in Nigeria’s Bauchi and Sokoto states were not able to read a single word in Hausa or English, according to a 2016 early grade reading baseline assessment conducted by the Northern Education Initiative Plus.

After two years of the project, a 2018 mid-line assessment showed a significant improvement in children’s ability to read. This was achieved through professional development for approximately 8,000 teachers, the distribution of more than 4 million textbooks and mobilizing thousands of community groups to advocate for quality education.

It has been two years since Zainab asked her father to enroll her at the center. These days he is willing to do more than that.

“He was the one who brought me to school and he bought my uniform and books. He loves that I can now read books,” Zainab says.

Thirty-one-year-old Ezedike Nwabueze Fredrick walks down a narrow path to the school building and turns to wave at a group of women who greet him in Hausa as the “teacher that owns the school.” Fredrick smiles, asks one of the mothers about her son who was absent from school the day before and promises to pay the student a visit.

Fredrick is from Lagos but could pass for a local celebrity in the sleepy community of Kofar Giwa in the Wurno local government area. His ticket to fame was volunteering as a teacher in Aisha Gumba Memorial Islamic School after serving in a year-long youth program that requires Nigerian graduates to use their skills to support the development of the country.

A retired police officer had opened the Kofar Giwa school in 2013 when he realized many families would not send their children to the public school several miles away from the community because of the distance. He heard of Fredrick’s teaching and asked him to volunteer in the school.

“I was happy to teach here,” says Fredrick. “I saw it as an opportunity to impact the lives of these children. Many of them were not even attending school. I had to convince their parents to let them come and when we started they could not read or write anything.”

A year after he joined the school, in 2016 Fredrick was selected as one of approximately 7,000 teachers to be trained by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Northern Education Initiative Plus on an early grade reading program called Let’s Read! (Mu Karanta! in Hausa). The program teaches children to read in Hausa in first grade and builds their skills to transition to English by third grade.

Fredrick had to overcome a learning curve himself during the program. He was a graduate of Pure and Applied Physics with no formal training in education. Having lived most of his life in western and southern Nigeria, he could not read or write in Hausa, the dominant language in the north.

“I used these impediments as a learning opportunity,” he says. “The Hausa Reading textbooks helped me learn how to read and write in Hausa. The teacher guides also directed me on how to structure my lessons and plan adequately ahead of time.”

So how does a teacher who cannot speak, read or write Hausa fluently teach children in the language? “It made teaching fun. I was not afraid to ask the children for help with pronunciations and meanings of words and so we learned together,” he explains.

In his spare time, Fredrick enjoys farming. To appreciate his good work, the community gave him a piece of land where he grows garlic, rice and onions. He harvests the produce and sells it in the market to big traders. But teaching remains his first love.

“I feel responsible for these children and I want them to have the same quality of education I had growing up in a big city and attending private schools,” he says.

Fredrick does not seem to miss city life. He goes months without visiting the Sokoto township and is not in a hurry to return to Lagos. “I am here to stay and build this place,” he says.

His wish is that the Sokoto state government will expand and sustain the activities of USAID’s Northern Education Initiative Plus project in schools so many more teachers and children can benefit from the reading intervention.

“I enjoy the books, I love the stories and poems because they allow me to play with the children. I am able to come to their level and experience their world through these books,” he says.

In partnerships with more than 100 international and local reading specialists, the project developed 30 individual reading materials, including teacher guides and student books with 750 lessons that contain colorful and detailed illustrations and stories that communicate local cultural norms and values–but also encourage children to think critically.

To date, the five-year project has distributed more than 4 million reading textbooks to students and teachers, opening new doors for about 400,000 children in Northern Nigeria to improve their basic literacy skills.

For Frederick’s students, his hands-on approach and dedication to teaching is evident.

“I love how my teacher teaches us,” says eight-year-old Muazu Abubakar, one of Fredrick’s pupils learning to read in Hausa and English. “He plays with us during lessons and even if we laugh at the way he pronounces some Hausa words, he does not mind. We learn together.”

In this environment, surrounded by his young students, Fredrick does not feel pressured to get a corporate job. He believes all his dreams can be achieved in Kofar Giwa community as a teacher.

“They say a teacher’s reward is in heaven but I get my reward on a daily basis when I see my children learn to read new words,” he says.