When to Randomize: Lessons From Independent Impact Evaluation of Reading to Learn (RtL) Programme to Improve Literacy and Numeracy in Kenya and Uganda

In East Africa, there is great effort directed toward ensuring that there is learning and value for money invested in universal education policies initiated over the past decade. Kenya and Uganda are two countries that typify this effort. The effort includes the work of research organisations such as Uwezo, which assess learning levels; RTI, which assesses language and early grade reading; and the work of African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), which looks at schooling patterns of different households. All these studies paint a disappointing picture both for the universal access Education for All policy and the large sums of money that have been devoted to achieve it. The verdict is that too many pupils in schools are not learning and too many poor ones are excluded from universal public access. Uwezo reports that 70% of pupils in Grade 3 cannot do Grade 2 work, and 9% of those completing Primary 8 in Kenya cannot do Grade 2 work. Answers are not easy to find, so borrowing what has worked elsewhere has been attempted. This article presents one effort toward finding what can work to improve learning for pupils in early grades. It is based on the idea of “Reading to Learn” implemented elsewhere and attempted in East Africa by Aga Khan Foundation and independently evaluated by APHRC using randomization methods. Lessons presented highlight the role and complexities of randomization in addressing the educational challenges in East Africa.     

Developmental relationship between declarative metacognitive knowledge and reading comprehension during secondary school

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Knowledge about one’s own cognitive processes is the basis for the monitoring and regulation of learning processes for effective reading...     

Challenges and opportunities in mainstreaming environmental education into the curricula of teachers' colleges in Ethiopia

Lack of environmental awareness is one of the underlying causes of severe environmental degradation in Ethiopia. As teachers' colleges are a seedbed of such awareness, assessment of college curricula should shed light on the possibilities they offer to develop capacities to address environmental degradation. This small‐scale study is based on the assessment of the curricula of the Kotebe and St Mary's teachers' colleges, Ethiopia, and the knowledge and opinions of a sample of teaching students on pertinent environmental issues facing the country. Comparative analysis of data generated through questionnaires and interviews was undertaken across college, curricula and gender categories. The results suggest: a ‘paradigm shift’ from a core‐focused to a pedagogical‐focused curriculum in the last three decades; a declining trend in the provision of outdoor environmental education; inadequate levels of factual knowledge amongst current college students; and variations in knowledge levels and attitudes among the respondents taking different curricula. If the work of teachers' colleges is to support wider efforts throughout Ethiopia to address the causes and effects of environmental degradation, the findings of the study underscore the necessity of revisiting the composition of course categories and maintaining the existence of outdoor environmental education in the current college curricula.     

Learning with vital materialities: weather assemblage pedagogies in early childhood education

Abstract

Early Childhood Education in general, and Early Childhood Education for Sustainability in particular, have dominantly relied on an ontological framework that privileges children’s agency. This paper challenges this dominant narrative by attuning to the everyday ways in which children are moved by the weather within a multitude of weather assemblages. It attempts to illustrate how ‘learning’ could be achieved when bodies come in relation with, and are able to be affected by, other bodies. Drawing on ideas from post-qualitative research orientation that highlights weather-generated data, the paper elucidates how the weather acts on and comes into relation with humans and non-human bodies. It contends that noticing and engaging with the vitality of weather offers possibilities for creating affects and that this potentially leads to an attunement towards ecological sensibility. Notions such as ‘vital materiality’ and ‘lively assemblages’ are discussed as a possibility to go beyond an anthropocentric understanding of the weather, which could pave the way towards a more relational ontology as a basis for emphasizing human’s ‘inter and intra-dependence’ with non-human nature, and hence, arguably, sustainable living.     

Standardization techniques for grade‐inflation problems at higher educational institutions of Ethiopia: the case of Addis Ababa

Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) is a measure that is used to display the achievement of college students in Ethiopia. It also serves as a key yardstick in career and scholarship assessment. In recent time there has been a rapid massification of higher educational institutions (HEIs). Many academics believe that the expansion has increased a tendency for grade inflation in Ethiopia. As an objective comparison of the quality of graduates from different HEIs is not easy, this study has attempted to discern the CGPA differentials across sample HEIs in Ethiopia and to derive a new standardization technique for their comparison. The study identifies different grading patterns, not only across college categories but also along various batches of HEIs. To generate the standardization technique, both CGPA and the ESLCE (Ethiopian School Leaving Certificate Examination) are employed to derive the Normalized Index. The index is used to adjust not only the inflated but also the deflated CGPAs. The quality of the index could be further improved by incorporating additional variables and also by validating the method over a large set of HEIs.     

Randomized impact evaluation of education interventions: experiences and lessons from a reading to learn intervention in East Africa

This paper presents the experiences and lessons learnt during the design and implementation of the randomized impact evaluation (IE) of a reading to learn (RtL) intervention in early primary grades. The study was to assess the impact of RtL on literacy and numeracy among pupils in low-performing districts in East Africa. The intervention was designed in a way that in each country one district implemented an intervention package that included teacher training, and teaching and learning materials; while the other district implemented this same package with an additional parental involvement component. Baseline data were collected in mid-2009 in Grades 1 and 2, and in 2010 for the incoming Grade 1. The endline data were collected in mid-2011. A total of 119 treatments and 110 control schools participated in the study. The randomized design provided an opportunity to attribute causality and also qualitatively establish pathways through which the intervention impacted on learning. The paper provides lessons learnt and demonstrates how the challenges faced during the evaluation were addressed. Additionally, the paper shows how IE was utilized to provide robust evidence of what works thus enabling policy-makers to make decisions on sustainability and scale-up of education interventions.