Think Creative - Issue 2

“Yazidu is performing better than his old- er brother who is in grade 4 because of the programmaterials and instruction,” explains Sahabi. “He has taught his brother and even other secondary students what he is learning at school.” Creative teaching, active learning In her career as a teacher in Sokoto, Yabo has experienced firsthand the challenges of teach- ing young learners with inadequate literacy curriculum and limited support. Until the Northern Education Initiative Plus program, she had not received in-service training. Yabo says she lacked quality teaching and learning materials and had limited guidance on planning lessons. For instance, she would enter a classroom and teach her students for several hours without inviting them to actively participate in lessons. “The trainings changedmy whole perspective on teaching. I have teacher guides with properly structured lessons. I engagemy pupils through- out the lesson. I hear their voices as much as they hear mine. It is teamwork,” says Yabo. Yabo says that since her school has embraced the Northern Education Initiative Plus inter- ventions, the culture of reading at Nizzamiyya Islamiyya Model Primary has improved, and the new approach to learning and teaching is creating a more positive environment. “Trained teachers are excited about teaching in class because they are finding creative ways to express themselves,” she explains. “Children want to come to school more because it is fun and parents love the textbooks.” She also says that the stories in the MuKaranta! textbooks have changed the behavior of children. “Children have listened to and read the stories that teach good hygiene, so children now take their bath and wear neat uniforms to school. There are stories that teach good morals and the value of education so children now understand that daily attendance in school is important,” she says. Joy du Plessis, the Senior Reading Specialist for Northern Education Initiative Plus, recognizes the importance of mother-tongue language and story illustrations in textbooks play to improve literacy education for all children–especially those living in remote northern Nigeria. “We’ve seen how the community is very happy with the illustrations and how they represent the culture,” she says. “Before the materials were printed, we tested them in communities to make sure they were socially and culturally relevant and acceptable.” The reading expert says the illustrations were designed to reflect strong, curious, lively and active girls and boys, and the images show the children as being equal. The illustrations and the stories encourage students like Yazidu to become critical thinkers and to question, predict, infer and analyze–im- portant skills needed to succeed in school and eventually in a thriving career. “How do we know early grade students in Soko- to are improving their reading skills and enjoy- ing learning new lessons?” asks du Plessis. “We see the accelerated student achievement in classrooms and a new excitement and embrace for education from parents and communities every single day.” n 24 | Think Creative | Issue 2 “The education system cannot be taken care of by individuals independent of the parents. Teachers are the parents at school and equally the parents are the teachers at home.” -Yusuf Alhassan Muhammad Local Government Reading Coordinator, Northern Education Initiative Plus reshaping education Northern Nigeria has the highest rate of out of school children in the country. And those attending school have not received the support they need to succeed in the classroom. About 80 percent of children in grades 2 and 3 in 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 Northern Education Initiative Plus. Recognizing these challenges, Sokoto state is marshalling its resources to im- prove education quality and access. “The Sokoto government has declared an educational state of emergency after sit- ting down and realizing the major issues in education in northern Nigeria,” says Faruk Shehu, Executive Secretary for Sokoto State Universal Basic Education Board. Shehu says two main groups—the Policy Council on Education and Technical Committees—have been established to fast-track education activities related to the state of emergency. The commit- tees include principals, teachers, school administrators, unions and international nongovernmental organizations, among others involved in the sector. Shehu says that “everybody is coming together” to solve the primary challenges to education in the state, an important task for the community. “A society without education is not fit to be a society,” he says. “If you look at it morally, economically and socially, educa- tion shapes the life of every individual.” The Northern Education Initiative Plus project works closely with federal, state and local government education authorities to support improved early grade reading instruction and educational access. To date, more than 9,000 educators have been equipped with practical skills to teach the program’s Mu Karanta! early grade reading curriculum. In Sokoto, gov- ernment vehicles have helped deliver the materials to 77 hard-to-reach rural areas. The community is also doing its part. The project and its local government partners have engaged traditional and religious leaders, as well as parents and school ad- ministrators, to become reading advocates and supporters of the new curriculum. Yusuf Alhassan Muhammad, Local Government Reading Coordinator for the project, says this support is critical to students’ success. “The education system cannot be taken care of by individuals independent of the parents,” he says. “Teachers are the parents at school and equally the parents are the teachers at home.” Addressing a state of emergency together