Zambia is facing a learning crisis: although ever more learners attend school, many do not learn. Many learners fail to acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills. These learners nonetheless progress through primary education and the gap between what learners know and what they are supposed to know based on the grade they are in broadens year-after-year.
While teachers are aware of this, they stick to the curriculum as they lack the time and competences to adapt their teaching to the level of the child. Remedial teaching is needed to provide those learners with an opportunity to catch up.
Government staff provide effective mentorship and support to teachers and school leaders in government and community schools, so they can assess and teach basic literacy and numeracy skills to grade 3 to 5 learners in the framework of remedial Catch Up lessons.
- Ministry of Education (MoE)
- Teaching at the Right Level Africa
- The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
- Pratham
The Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach provides grade 3 to 5 children with an opportunity to develop foundational literacy and numeracy skills outside of the regular school hours, as such closing the learning gap. In Zambia, it is pointedly called the ‘Catch Up’ (CU) approach. TaRL/CU is a highly effective remedial teaching methodology. Catch Up results do not only show that significant increases in learning outcomes are possible; they also show that the Ministry of Education (MoE) is implementing CU better every year .
TaRL/CU centres on strengthening the capacity of government staff at zonal, district and provincial level to ensure the TaRL approach is infused in the regular activities of both schools and the Ministry of Education (MoE).
TaRL/CU is built around three pillars:
- Strengthening the competencies of MoE staff to train, mentor and coach teachers on the TaRL/CU approach; and to train mentors and school leaders that can support teachers during CU implementation.
- Development and implementation of continuous professional development (CPD) trajectories for teachers on the TaRL/CU methodology.
- Gathering evidence on effectiveness: Teachers are trained to assess the level of the learners, so that they can group learners by learning levels. The CU learner assessment is, however, also used more widely to monitor performance, by tracking learners’ progress. In the framework of the programme, ministry officials are trained to optimise data usage.
By expanding CU to Central Province, VVOB wants to ensure that every learner acquires basic literacy and numeracy skills, irrespective of socio-economic background. CU works with all governments but also reaches all community schools, ensuring that all learners, even those in the most disadvantaged socio-economic situations, benefit from the programme.
By the end of the programme:
- The in-service structures of MoE in charge of professional development are strengthened to deliver training and support to teachers, mentors and school leaders in the TaRL/CU methodology.
- The CPD of teachers, mentors and school leaders is supported. The CPD trajectories consist of:
- training on TaRL methodology and principles
- continuous mentoring support while implementing CU
- coaching, which increasingly replaces continuous mentoring as staff of the in-service structures becomes more experienced. VVOB also provides coaching to guide collection and analysis of assessment data of learners.
- MoE acts on and commits to the further institutionalisation and nationwide scaling of TaRL/CU.
