State officials have expanded the successful training, coaching and early grade materials of the Northern Education Initiative Plus to an additional 13 local government areas not covered by the project, making it officially a statewide program.

This expansion follows the success of the U.S Agency for International Development-funded Northern Education Initiative Plus early grade reading program, which trained approximately 7,000 teachers in 2016 on its Let’s Read! (Mu Karanta! in the local language of Hausa) curriculum.

Working closely with the government, the program also distributed more than 4 million reading textbooks to students and teachers, improving basic literacy skills for 400,000 children in Bauchi and Sokoto states.

Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education Professor Aishatu Madawaki Isa says having more children gain basic literacy skills remains a priority for state government.

“We have decided to adopt the Northern Education Initiative Plus reading model because it helps build a strong foundation for our children. Our intention remains to cover every school, every child and every teacher with the Let’s Read! Mu Karanta! Program,” Isa says.

Improving education quality through professional development and new materials

A key piece of this expansion is additional teacher training. The Sokoto state government will provide a unique professional development opportunity for 1,350 teachers to grow into their roles as reading teachers to young learners.

This latest teacher training expanded the program’s reach and ensure more teachers have the materials and support to successfully educate young learners.

Many schools in Sokoto state are overcrowded, with student-teacher ratios of 100 — or more — to one. The quality of teaching is also a cause for concern. Many teachers have not had access to in-service training since taking up their posts.

Thanks to the expansion of the Let’s Read! Mu Karanta! Program, this is all about to change.

One of the teachers to join the new cohort of trainees in Sokoto state is Safiya Usman. Usman comes from a family of teachers, including both her grandparents and parents, but neither family experience nor her initial teacher training fully prepared her to handle a class of over 100 pupils.

This will be her first training in four years of teaching.

“This training is useful because I have learned different child-friendly approaches to engage the learners,” says Usman. “I can also put them in groups and engage them in several activities with songs, stories and the use of flash cards.”

In her third-grade class, Usman says there are hardly any students who can read or write in Hausa and English fluently. This is poised to change with the introduction of new teacher guidance materials for pre-planned lessons, as well as reading and writing workbooks to support learners.

“These materials provide children with opportunities to practice reading, listening and writing every day. The illustrations and stories are also very relevant, and if I follow the lessons, I should see improvement in my pupils,” she says.

Building on early grade reading success

Findings of the recent early grade reading assessment conducted in 2018 indicated a significant improvement in reading outcomes among learners in both Bauchi and Sokoto states, where the Let’s Read! Mu Karanta! program operates. Grade 3 learners in particular showed a marked improvement in their ability to read and understand grade-level text following the first three years of this five-year program.

Based on these gains and the warm reception the program has received from learners, parents and teachers, the Sokoto state government decided to replicate and extend the early grade reading program to schools in 13 other local governments not covered by the Northern Education Initiative Plus, making it a statewide program.

The Sokoto government is working to meet commitments made in a five-year memorandum of understanding signed with USAID to support basic education.

Guiding teachers to success in the classroom

In a state where conditions are challenging for learners and their families, there is renewed excitement as teachers learn new techniques for developing learners’ reading skills.

For many teachers, having a guide where all lessons are scripted for the whole school year is a welcome addition to their classroom work. Each teacher’s guide contains daily lessons in reading and writing, in English and in Hausa, which provide activities and step-by-step instructions to support effective teaching. The Let’s Read! Mu Karanta! teacher’s guide helps teachers integrate reading activities in a way that provides pupils with a rich and well-structured learning experience.

The lessons contain songs, stories and encourage the use of flash cards, charts and posters to explain concepts, such as how to teach letters and sounds in English.

Abdullahi Omeji from the Bodinga local government says the teacher’s guide will help him prepare adequately for his class.

“It is clear what the objective for each lesson is, what materials I could use to teach sounds and letters and how I can guide the pupils to learn effectively with the songs and stories,” he says.

In 2016, USAID’s Northern Education Initiative Plus developed 750 lessons in Hausa and English for Let’s Read! Mu Karanta! while partnering with more than 100 international and local curriculum developers, linguists, primary school teachers and other educators.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has adopted the reading program and materials to train additional teachers on early grade reading, working in local governments in Bauchi and Sokoto that are not covered by the program.

Year-round support through coaching and mentoring

Beyond the training, teachers require support and supervision at the schools to continue learning and growing through exchanges with peers and supervisors.

The Northern Education Initiative Plus coaching and mentoring model provides these opportunities for teachers by training school support officers in early grade reading to conduct regular classroom observations and provide feedback to help the teachers to improve.

Sokoto state government adopted this coaching and mentoring system in its own yearly planning. Teacher trainers who lead trainings in the 13 expansion local government areas are school support officers. These school support officers received five days’ training to not only train teachers, but also to provide coaching and mentoring support on a regular basis.

Lubabatu Mohammed was a teacher for almost 20 years before transferring to the Sokoto North Local Government Education Authority as a school support officer. She is one of the 104 teacher trainers selected to train the teachers in the expansion areas. She says the skills she gains will also be useful for classroom observations when she visits schools.

“Now I know what to look out for when I visit a school and observe a teacher teaching early grade reading. I want to see how the teacher follows the sequential steps in the lesson, interaction with learners, use of teaching aids, pronunciation of sounds and pupil practice time,” Lubabatu says.

In all, the state has distributed early grade reading materials, trained teachers and supported school monitoring and supervision with an investment of $497,000 in 2018.

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.