The walls of Mankhaka Primary School in the rural outskirts of this small town are plastered with colorful signs displaying vocabulary words, class schedules and school rules. Among these signs in the head teacher’s office is a chart with the names of the school’s 45 learners, fora de 441, who have lost one or both parents due to HIV/AIDs, malária ou outras causas.

“HIV/AIDS has not spared the district, like any other place in the tropical Africa or in Zambia,”Diz Herbert Mwiinga, District Education Board Secretary for the Lundazi District, which is in the country’s Eastern Province. “So we have a challenge of a number of vulnerable children that have got no support.”

Na Zâmbia, HIV/AIDS afflicts roughly 12.5 percent of the population and has left more than 670,000 children orphaned, de acordo com a UNICEF dados de 2012. Mais do que 1.4 milhões de crianças da Zâmbia são órfãs devido a HIV/AIDS e outras causas combinadas.

Para muitas destas crianças, coping with loss, trauma and financial hardship while trying to stay in school can be overwhelming, leading to high rates of dropout and low academic achievement.

As part of Creative Associates International’s “whole learner, professor inteiro, whole school approach” to school effectiveness , USAID/READ para ter sucesso and Zambia’s Ministry of Education, Ciência, Formação Profissional e Educação Infantil (Mesvtee) is reaching these vulnerable students with key psychosocial support to keep them on track for success inside and outside the classroom.

The Read to Succeed project is funded by the U.S. Agência para o Desenvolvimento Internacional e implementada pela Creative.

“Educating a child is not just giving them skills in arithmetic or English and expect them to learn when they have psychosocial or emotional problems,” says Audrey Mwansa, Deputy Chief of Party and Guidance and Counseling Advisor for USAID/READ para ter sucesso. “Unless the psychosocial domain is also addressed, the child cannot learn. To educate the whole child, all the three domains need attention, including the physical, cognitive and psychosocial.”

Reaching the most at-risk learners

Em mais de 1,200 schools in six provinces across Zambia, Guidance and Counseling teachers have received training through the USAID/Read to Succeed project on effective methods to reach the most vulnerable learners and provide critical ongoing support.

“A lot of the guidance teachers have been sharpened with the skills on how they can identify learners that have problems. And they’ve also been provided with skills and knowledge on how they can ably handle such issues,” says Makaiko Nkhata, District Guidance and Counseling Coordinator for Lundazi, who oversees the district’s roll out of the psychosocial support program through USAID/Read to Succeed.

Throughout the country, in rural and impoverished districts like Lundazi, Guidance and Counseling teachers regularly encounter learners dealing with sensitive issues from early marriage to teen pregnancy, health problems and economic pressures to dropout and support the family through agriculture and other trades.

Addressing these topics with compassion and tact, and marshaling the resources to support such youth, is essential for keeping the most at-risk pupils in school and on the path to becoming healthy, productive and educated citizens.

Youth spark change, build confidence

The pupils at Mphamba Primary School in Lundazi know, firsthand, about the psychosocial challenges of adolescence. Teen pregnancy, explains middle school student Tinkhe Shumba, is a reality for many of her peers, threatening to derail their academic and life goals.

“If you get pregnant as a teenager, you will have a lot of problems in future,” says Shumba, recounting a story of a girl she knows who dropped out of school after becoming pregnant and now sells charcoal on the streets. “If you don’t get educated, then you will face a lot of problems.”

Shumba is part of a group of peer mentors, called Agents of Change, working side by side Guidance and Counseling teachers to deliver important messages to their classmates about staying in school, practicing healthy behaviors and making smart choices.

Agents of Change are trained on how to discuss sensitive subjects with their classmates like peer pressure, drugs and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDs. The Agents of Change support their peers through challenging situations, like the loss of parents, returning to school after a pregnancy or dropout and resisting pressure to use drugs.

Through peer-led discussions, esquetes e músicas, Agents of Change throughout project- supported schools are changing behaviors and attitudes and have become valuable support systems to their classmates.

“It’s very easy for a pupil to open up to a fellow pupil on certain matters than it would be to a guidance teacher. Então, if these learners are well-trained….they can be better pillars of hope to their friends,” says Nkhata.

Shumba, who says she once had a peer mentor who cautioned her against risky behaviors, advises her friends: “If you are a girl of my age, concentrate on education. When you complete your education, you will live a better life.”

Since the program began, the efforts of Agents of Change like Shumba have been paying off, shifting pupils’ behaviors and upping their chances of completing school and transitioning to a stable, healthy adulthood.

“In the previous years before the program started, we found that we had a big number of pupils—the girls—becoming pregnant,” says Rhoda Zgambo, Guidance and Counseling Teacher at Mphamba Primary School, where Shumba is an Agent of Change. “But after sensitization, we find that now the number of pupils becoming pregnant has reduced. Even the orphans now, we find that it’s easy for the orphans to interact in school, realizing that a school is also a family.”

As Agents of Change shift the mindsets and influence the actions of their peers, Guidance and Counseling teachers also report a positive transformation for the Agents of Change themselves.

Through reaching out and speaking out about issues facing their peer group, Agents of Change “get that confidence,” says Annie Kayela, Guidance and Counseling Teacher at Chiginya Primary School in Lundazi. “We talk to them about being confident, telling them why they have been chosen as Agents of Change for the school. That really helps them.”

Mobilizando a comunidade

In many communities surrounding Chiginya School and other Lundazi schools, Kayela says that parents do not always support their children’s education or realize its importance. After dropout, early marriage or teen pregnancy, Kayela says some parents do not encourage their kids to return to school.

Through school-community partnerships, USAID/Read to Succeed is turning the tide by reaching out to community leaders and parents to sensitize them on the importance of education, delaying the age of marriage and encouraging their kids to stay in school.

Members of these school-community partnerships act as messengers between the schools and villagers and encourage dialogue and collaboration to address the psychosocial and educational issues affecting learners.

“The formation of School Community Partnership committees has opened the community to schools in terms of bringing forth issues that may be hindering people’s progress in their communities,” says Nkhata.

Kayela says that one of the biggest changes she has seen since the program began is the way the community partnership is working with the Agents of Change to encourage students, primarily girls, to return to school and prioritize education.

“A lot of girls have come back, have realized that education is very important,” says Kayela.

She says that the Chiginya School Community Partnership Committee recently convinced the parents of one girl who had been pulled out of school to be married to send their daughter back to the classroom.

The risks of absenteeism and truancy have also been a major focus of School Community Partnership Committees throughout the Lundazi district, Nkhata says.

Through partnerships with communities, learners are able to access another support network in addition to the school counselors and peer Agents of Change, increasing their chances of getting an education and realizing their goals in and out of the classroom.

“A child should be able to identify that he or she is not an island,” says Nkhata. “They have people that they can lean on in their communities where they are coming from.”

Judith Mwendaendi, Head Teacher at Kanele Primary School, has seen firsthand the consequences of inadequate literacy curriculum and ineffective teaching methods. De fato, her eldest daughter is in the fifth grade and, like many Zambian learners, has struggled with reading and writing.

Apenas ao redor 65 porcentagem de idades dos zambianos 15 para 24 são alfabetizados, de acordo com a UNESCO dados de 2015, colocando o país bem atrás de seus vizinhos na comunidade de desenvolvimento da África Austral.

Outdated instructional methods and inadequate training of teachers are two of the reasons for poor learner performance. Mais, while there are seven official languages other than English in Zambia, learners have been taught in English before they could read or write in their mother tongues, resulting in poor performance in both languages.

With the 2012 introduction of the Primary Literacy Program through Leia para ter sucesso- Um EUA. Agency for International Development-funded project to support the Ministry of Education, Ciência, Formação Profissional e Educação Infantil (Mesvtee)—learners are making strides in literacy. The project aims to improve reading among learners in grades 1 para 4 em suas línguas locais da Zâmbia. Funciona em mais de 1,200 escolas primárias em seis províncias.

“Before the Read to Succeed project was introduced into districts, it was dismal, to say the least,”Diz Herbert Mwiinga, Lundazi’s District Education Board Secretary for the Ministry of Education, Ciência, Formação Profissional e Educação Infantil, which has taken the lead in rolling out the project. “We used to perform very badly [in literacy] as a district, but with the coming of this program, our teachers have also seen the benefits of this methodology.”

USAID/Read to Succeed uses a “whole school, professor inteiro, whole learner” approach to improve learning, ensino, gestão escolar, apoio dos pais e da comunidade e capacidade de resposta a um necessidades psicossociais da criança. O projeto é implementado pela Creative Associates International.

Mwendaendi says she has seen positive results from the program among her learners at Kanele Primary School and with her own daughters, particularly her youngest, whose first grade class is participating in the phonics-based primary literacy program.

“Her beginnings have proved to us that she has gotten the concept. And for sure she’s going to be a very fluent reader by the time she will be in grade four,”ela diz. “It is a very good thing for our pupils, and for my daughters, specifically.”

Better teaching & management for better learning

In the classrooms of Kanele, the team of primary grade teachers Mwendaendi oversees are actively engaged with the pupils, flashing local-language letter cards as their pupils call back with the corresponding sound. As the pupils work their way through each letter sound, a word begins to emerge and faces light up with comprehension.

The new phonics-based curriculum introduced by MESVTEE and supported by USAID/Read to Succeed has transformed learning and teaching. To better get through to learners, teachers have been trained in new methods focused on phonics, consciência fonêmica, fluência, vocabulário e compreensão.

“We are looking at teacher effectiveness and accountability, because we do realize that a teacher is very critical in the dispensation of education,”Sua pililla GerGrude Ji., Team Leader of the USAID/Read to Succeed team in Zambia’s Eastern Province.

A data, the project has trained more than 6,200 professores e mais de 3,100 education managers in the target districts of six provinces in the effective phonics-based reading pedagogy and ways to improve a school’s reading culture, from new reading circles under trees to homegrown local-language stories written by community members, learners and teachers.

‘There is quite a lot of change in the reading culture in schools,"Diz Francis Sampa, Vice -Chefe de Partido e Consultor de Desenvolvimento de Professores da USAID/READ para ter sucesso. “The reports reflect that there is a lot of activity around reading, and observations show that the children are able to read much faster than before.”

These gains in reading are due in part to that fact that pupils are surrounded by positive messages about reading, says one teacher.

“We have the writings all over the premises. The learners are able to read at whatever place they are,”Diz Elizabeth Zimba, a first grade teacher at Kanele. “And we have the programs where we have the learners at the reading circles where they are sharing, where they are teaching each other how to read what they’ve learned in classes.”

To ensure that teachers like Zimba have the ongoing coaching and support they need for success in the classroom, USAID/Read to Succeed has trained head teachers like Mwendaendi in education leadership and management, recognizing that the head of the school should be more than just an administrator.

“What is the role of the head?” asks Jere. “Is he supposed to be sitting in the office only to supervise, and look at that as teaching? Ou, is he supposed to be an instructional leader?”

As instructional leaders, head teachers support school in-service training coordinators and hold regular teacher group meetings, where fellow teachers share ideas and discuss challenges they may be facing in the implementation of the curriculum.

Head teachers are also trained in how to conduct continuous assessments of learners and monitor teacher performance, so that struggling learners can receive additional support.

These assessments allow teachers to identify areas in which students are falling behind, says Head Teacher Rabecca Sakala at Chiginya Primary School in Lundazi. “If it’s phonics where the pupils are not doing very well, the teacher will concentrate in that. If it’s writing, then the teacher will give the pupils a lot of handwriting.”

Sakala says that since her school implemented USAID/Read to Succeed-supported interventions, the culture of reading at Chiginya Primary School has shifted and the new approach to learning, teaching and school management is paying off.

“Before Read to Succeed came into practice, the level of reading from grade one up to grade seven, it was very poor….we’ve seen that the levels of reading have gone up,”ela diz. “We found that a grade two pupil is able to read a storybook from maybe page one up to the last page. Even words which maybe a bigger boy can fail to read. But to find that in grade one, by the end of the year, that pupil is ready to read all the difficult words in his Zambian language!”

Community engagement spreads culture of reading

As the culture of reading is strengthened within schools and learners make strides in their mother-tongues, which they speak at home, USAID/Read to Succeed is reaching out to parents and communities to build support for literacy education after the school day ends and keep learners on course for reading success.

Across the six target provinces in Zambia, USAID/Read to Succeed schools have established 1,204 School Community Partnership Committees to engage community members in their children’s education and key decisions in school management.

“We noticed that the community itself, they feel as part of the school. They are not alienated or away from the school,” says Head Teacher Boniface Mumba at Hoya Primary School in Lundazi. “We address school challenges together with the community. E então, along with that, we see that the child feels accepted in school because we have created a school environment which is very friendly to the child.”

During school visits and committee meetings, community members are informed of school and learner progress and the implementation of school’s Learner Performance Improvement Plan, so that educators are held accountable.

Whole child approach spans beyond classroom

In many Zambian schools, learners are contending with more than just learning challenges inside the classroom—a further reason community support for learners is so critical.

HIV/AIDS afflicts roughly 12.5 percent of the population and has left more than 670,000 Zambian children orphaned, de acordo com a UNICEF dados de 2012. Mais do que 1.4 million children are orphans due to HIV/AIDS and other causes combined. Além disso, many children and adolescents, particularmente em áreas rurais, face challenges of poverty, early marriage and school dropout.

As part of its whole child approach to school effectiveness, USAID/Read to Succeed has trained Guidance and Counseling teachers on how to reach the most vulnerable learners with key psychosocial support so that they can stay on track inside and outside of school.

Community members and adolescent peer counselors, called Agents of Change, act as ambassadors of positive messages promoting healthy behaviors and encouraging learners to stay in school and parents to support learner attendance.

An eye toward future sustainability

With an eye toward the future, the MESVTEE has taken the lead at each step of USAID/Read to Succeed’s rollout—from development of the National Literacy Framework to revision of the curriculum to educator training to evaluation.

“Read to Succeed is different because it encourages and enhances locally initiated activities and innovations,”diz Truly Zewdie, Chefe do partido para o projeto. “O projeto, from the beginning, has decided to work within the existing MESVTEE system, within the MESVTEE existing structure. So whatever the project does is within the existing government structure.”

The goals of the USAID/Read to Succeed, say MESVTEE officials, are one and the same as of those of the Ministry. Where the project has been critical is providing the resources and capacity building to make these goals a reality.

“It’s like Read to Succeed came in at the critical time to fit in or fill in a vacuum that was recognizable in the Ministry of Education, but due to lack of resources, we were unable to implement,” says Mwiinga, Lundazi’s District Education Board Secretary.

Mwiinga says that he and his Ministry colleagues across the district and province have participated in dialogues on exit strategy and have truly taken ownership of the program.

“It’s our program and not the USAID or Read to Succeed program,”ele diz. “These people have just come on board to open our eyes. And we have to carry the mantle forward on our own, with the resources that we have from government.”

The project has also built a coalition of partners, de o setor privado—which has provided schools with local language reading materials—to higher education research institutions, like the University of Zambia, which have joined efforts with the MESVTEE to research literacy and develop methods to continuously improve literacy education.

This joint national effort to improve literacy education and primary grade reading levels has already proven fruitful in the Lundazi district, says Mwiinga

“At least one, two terms into this program, you have seen that actually there is some significant improvement in [learner] desempenho, in their reading abilities, in their writing abilities,”ele diz. “So to us, that’s a positive. It means the program has been accepted. It means the program is working.”