TaRL Africa team members participate in a science activity during a study tour to India. Photo: TaRL Africa

Learning is constant in TaRL Africa. Since international travel restrictions relaxed, several team members have been visiting TaRL programming across the world to understand the approach better. Many team members are travelling to India, where one of TaRL Africa’s founding partners, Pratham Education Foundation, pioneered TaRL. Toward the end of August, members of the senior management team (SMT) visited Pratham programmes in New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. While members of the Content and Training teams as well as the Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation (MLE) teams visited programmes in Gujarat and Maharashtra in November 2022.

During their visits, TaRL Africa teams observed a wide spectrum of education programming including TaRL programmes. In a LinkedIn post, Titus Syengo, TaRL Africa’s Executive Director, recounted a particularly fun TaRL session during which the teacher asked learners to group all visitors by their height. “We quickly became learning materials for the children, and truly the children were having fun deciding on who was taller and who was shorter,” he said. For Daniele Ressler, Director of TaRL Africa’s MLE team, the learning journey to India helped her to identify multiple contradictions and tensions that can co-exist in education programmes and how she can help to make them better. “I have observed different perspectives in person, which are not documented in books or literature. This is extremely useful when you work with programmes,” she said.

During these visits, multiple discussions were also held on a variety of topics ranging from organisational culture to opportunities for innovation with senior government officials in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat as well as Pratham’s senior leadership. These included talks with Dr. Rukmini Banerji, Pratham’s CEO, and Co-founders, Dr. Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambay.

The meetings left team members with a lot of food for thought. For instance, during a reflection workshop TaRL Africa colleagues, Chavi Jain, Deputy Director, MLE; Carla Campos, Programme Coordinator in Côte d’Ivoire; and Guy-Edgar, Content and Training Associate in Côte d’Ivoire, highlighted the need to foster more exchanges of ideas and opinions. “From the co-founders’ talks, we could see that ‘spirit’ was very important to organisations,” said Chavi.

The sessions also helped team members to think about organisational flexibility to keep responding to the ever-growing and ever-changing educational needs. “TaRL Africa can take note of Pratham’s journey across the spectrum of education programming and think about creating tailored solutions to suit the diverse learning needs of learners across the African continent,” said Prince Muraguri, Research Associate with the MLE team. Content and Training Associate Vellah Kadieza reflected on how flexible albeit unconventional interventions to achieve learning for work and life were discussed and observed during the learning journey.

From considering the local realities to ensuring existing resources and structures are optimised, team members considered the diverse elements needed to run education programmes smoothly in varied contexts. “We learned an important lesson, scale but consciously — don’t scale just because you have funds without focusing on organisation building and team building,” said Carla.

As we celebrate teachers on the occasion of World Teachers Day, we asked our staff members to write a letter to their favourite teacher. Here’s what our colleague, Tanvi, wrote for her primary grade teacher.

 

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About the author:

Tanvi Banerjee is an Associate at Pratham’s International Collaborations team. She also supports TaRL Africa’s communications.

For almost two years, consecutive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic forced many TaRL Africa colleagues to work from home, limiting interactions to online meetings and emails. When it became safer to resume international travel, members of the central team and representatives from the country teams met in Kenya for a strategy retreat from February 28th to March 2nd, 2022.

This in-person meeting was an exciting opportunity to bond as a team and align on the vision of the way forward for TaRL Africa and its work in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the course of several sessions, we shared updates on work and plans. We also discussed TaRL Africa-supported programs in detail, sharing learnings from varied experiences and brainstorming on how to more efficiently address the learning crisis exacerbated by the pandemic and school closures.

In addition to workshops and meetings, the team had an opportunity to visit Learning Labs in Kitui. The labs have helped us create spaces for ongoing learning in our core countries and will continue to enable us to hatch adjustments and innovations to improve TaRL programming across the continent.

Meeting each other in person has helped the team to work more effectively across the digital divide. There is more emphasis on finding synergy between different workstreams and cultivating a culture of constant knowledge sharing. As TaRL Africa operations and technical support continue to expand in 2022, we are excited to grow, share and learn!

To learn more about our diverse team, visit tarl.info/meet-the-team

Learners playing number jump during a TaRL session.   Photo: YARID

Schools recently re-opened in Uganda at the beginning of 2022, nearly two years after closing because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is not only COVID-19 that has kept refugee children from accessing education in Uganda. Refugee children in Uganda also require a minimum qualification to enter the mainstream education system. Language barriers between the teachers and the refugees also further inhibit refugee children from attending school. According to Young African Refugees for Integral Development (YARID), refugee children between the age of 9-14 years have been found to have little or no foundational skills. Many of these vulnerable children have migrated from neighboring countries like Burundi, Congo, South Sudan, and Rwanda into refugee camps in Uganda due to war and other harsh realities to look for a place to settle in peace. Many families expect that in the camps, their children will have an opportunity to go to school and have a brighter future.

YARID, with support from TaRL Africa and Street Child, has been trying to access to learning for refugee children a reality with its ‘Bridging the Gap’ program, which has adopted the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach. They organize bridging classes in the community where the learners are taught basic reading and math skills.

The Bridging the Gap Programme 

After the government eased COVID-19 restrictions, TaRL Africa’s program team visited one of the largest refugee camps in Uganda, Kyaka II refugee settlement camp in the Kyegegwa district. According to the UNHCR, the camp hosts approximately 135,000 refugees and over 3000 asylum seekers, of which 78% are women and children.

In Kyaka II, YARID offers a ray of hope for young refugee children by supporting them acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills. YARID was founded in 2007 by young refugees from Congo living in Uganda who had a mission to empower fellow refugees, asylum seekers, and other displaced individuals within East Africa. Using the TaRL approach, YARID has been supporting targeted learners in eight centers in the camp to acquire basic reading and maths skills to help them join mainstream education. YARID has constructed classrooms in the centers where the learners gather for classes for two hours a day, one-hour literacy, and one-hour maths for a period of six months. A typical TaRL class usually has approximately 25-30 learners, two teachers in every class, one a Ugandan national and the other a refugee who helps in translation.

Implementation of the L2F2 methodology by Yarid

YARID, a recipient of a TaRL Africa Innovation grant in 2022, has worked hand-in-hand with Street Child, TaRL Africa, and Pratham to pilot an innovative approach to learning English. This approach, known as Language Learning from Familiar to Formal (L2F2), is an innovative methodology that seeks to help learners acquire foundational skills in both the local Language and the formal Language of instruction. So far, the L2F2 program has enabled learners to make remarkable progress in learning English after only two to four weeks of the program.

After a six-month intervention cycle, several children tend to acquire foundational skills in reading and math. According to the endline data collected by YARID in December 2021, there was a 38 percentage point improvement in Swahili, a 33 percentage point improvement in English, and a 67 percentage point improvement in numeracy in Cohort 1 of the 2nd cycle 2021. In 2022 there was a 70 percentage point improvement in the mother tongue, a 57 percentage point improvement in English, and a 58 percentage point improvement in numeracy in Cohort 2 of the 1st  cycle 2022.

Subsequently, 684 learners have transitioned to public schools in the mainstream education system. Many learners who have smoothly transitioned from the YARID bridging centers are also performing well.

“Teachers in the public schools are pleased by the great performance of this learner in the normal classes. They can read, write and attempt basic operations in maths,” said Deborah, one of the YARID field officers.

Mentorship support

Master trainers and mentors, who are volunteers, have been very instrumental in the success of this program. They religiously offer technical support to the teachers in the classes. They have been equipped with skills and expertise to carefully support the teachers in ensuring quality delivery of the L2F2 methodology and bridging the gap program. They also conduct classroom observation while the session is on and offer onsite feedback to improve the delivery.

Mentors and master trainers also play an important role outside the classrooms; for example, mentors ensure learners’ full attendance in the TaRL classes by following up on absent learners. Sometimes, they offer child protection services, ensuring that learners receive medical attention, counseling, and referral on illness, gender-based violence, etc.

The Bridging the Gap program is impacting the lives of many households in Kyaka II Refugee settlement. Additionally, using the TaRL principles of observation, listening, doing, reading, and writing, the learners quickly improve their skills in literacy and numeracy. YARID and Street child continue to shine a Ray of Hope to young refugee learners with aspirations and ambitions to improve their current life status.

Team members from TaRL Africa conduct an energizer during a TaRL training. Photo: Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, much of TaRL Africa’s work had to be shifted online. TaRL Africa central team members, Vikas Varma, Indresh Talsaniya, and Chavi Jain reflect on the team’s experiences of adapting face-to-face TaRL trainings to the virtual space in this blog documented by Tanvi Banerjee.

In March 2020, our plans came to a standstill. Initially, several members of the team were supposed to visit Egypt to deliver an in-person training on the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Approach. We were in high spirits as this would be our first time conducting a TaRL training in Arabic (and visiting the pyramids). Some team members were also preparing to conduct field visits to other countries such as Zambia, where the Catch Up (TaRL) program is implemented. However, all of a sudden, all activities were halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the rest of the world, we too went into lockdown.

In the first few weeks, there was much uncertainty. No one was sure how to proceed with our fieldwork. However, we realized that the pandemic would not let us go back to the old “normal” any time soon and that we needed to prepare for extended lockdowns. Everyone started thinking about the consequences of the pandemic on children’s learning. Immediately, we started making plans to deliver TaRL trainings through different mediums. By April 2020, we had decided to conduct virtual trainings to provide our technical expertise and know-how to TaRL implementers.

Lessons From the First Virtual Training

Over the past year, we have conducted several trainings virtually. Each training has given us valuable insights into improving the delivery of TaRL trainings and an opportunity to learn how to adapt to diverse contexts. We began our journey with virtual trainings for a project in Egypt in May 2020.  It remains one of the most memorable trainings for our team, and there is much we learnt from this experience.

The process of adapting our in-person training into a virtual one was not easy. Data indicates that formal in-person training leads to higher motivation levels, increased perceived value of the training, and knowledge retention. Additionally, TaRL training has a physical component. We play games and conduct several interactive activities. Therefore, we had several concerns on how to perform the training virtually, including the following:

How long should we spend in front of a computer or laptop?

Usually, a TaRL training is conducted over 5 to 7 days, and we devote at least 7-8 hours to delivering content every day. Sometimes, even after finishing a full day of training, we would have to set aside an hour or two for discussions with trainees regarding their doubts and questions. However, we also understood that replicating this kind of a training virtually would not be easy. For instance, we knew that an 8-hour long virtual training might not be very successful given technical challenges.

How should we train participants on TaRL activities, which often need live demonstrations? 

The majority of TaRL training involves instructing participants on conducting level-based activities to teach foundational math and language to learners. We follow the ‘learning by doing’ approach, using live demonstrations for the activities and asking trainees to practice these with children from their schools or neighbourhoods.

Some of our other concerns before the virtual training included making sure that the participant received enough practice during training; ensuring that everyone received the same information; managing time differences; navigating technical issues; and effectively training individuals who might not be proficient in English.

After some thought, the team identified some solutions to these challenges:

• Increase the duration of the training: In our first virtual training, we increased the number of training days from 7 to 14. Given that this training was held in Egypt, we added extra days to ensure adequate time for translation and to account for any time lost due to technological challenges.
• Reduce the number of training hours per day: Since we were apprehensive about connectivity and concentration issues, we decided to reduce the virtual training hours to 4-5 hours per day with adequate breaks.
• Conduct live demonstrations or show recordings of the activities: The team initially had differing opinions on how to deliver the content. However, we decided to use live demonstrations and video recordings to show how to conduct activities. When using live demonstrations during the training, we ask participants to participate and follow along. However, certain activities cannot be demonstrated live. To cover these activities, we use videos that we created recently in addition to new videos created in the field.
• Make content engaging: It was hard to find a single method to teach the activities to the participants. We, therefore, began experimenting. For some activities, we showed participants a video with just our hands as we conducted the activity. Additionally, colleagues in the team started using animated PowerPoint presentations to demonstrate math activities.
• Leverage technology to ensure participants practice the approach: To increase comfort with the approach, we encouraged participants to practice the activities and TaRL processes. During virtual training, it can be difficult to conduct teach-backs and group practice sessions as trainees might join from different locations. Hence, we came up with an idea to ensure that participants kept practising. We now provide participants with homework and request them to record a video of themselves conducting practice classes with group members, children in their neighbourhoods and schools, or with members of their family. We then ask participants to share the activities with us through online messaging apps such as WhatsApp or upload the videos to a shared cloud folder.

 

 

• Create active channels for communication: From our experience, we learnt that it was important to ensure that participants continue to be engaged during the training and have an opportunity to clarify doubts. Therefore, we create WhatsApp Groups with trainers and all the participants. This channel can be used by participants to ask doubts, share material, coordinate with group members, and more. We have even started using platforms like Google Docs and Padlet as parking spaces for participants’ questions and other training-related materials.

However, one of the most persistent challenges that we have faced has been making sure that everyone can adapt to the technology used to conduct these trainings. For instance, we try to ensure that the participants have access to good internet for the duration of the training. Additionally, some participants recently started using zoom. To keep everyone aware of some technical rules, we added a housekeeping session to provide basic training rules.

Adapting to Feedback and Local Contexts

The team’s virtual training has been evolving through constructive feedback and tailoring the training to fit the local realities. For instance, after our first training in Egypt, we received feedback that we should work on reducing the number of days instead of having shorter sessions. In subsequent training, we thus started to revise timings based on partner organization’s availability.

We also started to plan for training in environments where participants could gather in one place while our team continued to operate digitally. In such a situation, we asked coordinators from the trainee organizations to work on the following arrangements:

• Ensure that the training venue has good internet connectivity
• Have a backup in place for the Internet
• Have a backup in place to address power cuts
• Have access to microphones and a speaker system
• Ensure access to training material

These context-specific adaptations have helped. Recently, we successfully trained an organization working with refugees in Uganda despite connectivity issues. For this training, we reduced the number of days from 14 to 8 days. Instead, we increased the session time from 5 hours to 8 hours with adequate breaks. Additionally, in this training, we tried to use live demonstrations and animated PowerPoint presentations more effectively. Through our experiences in different contexts, we have also learned an important lesson: No matter the changes made to the training, it is important to ensure that participants remain engaged for the entirety of the training.

New Opportunities

As the pandemic rages on, we have had to embrace the ‘new normal.’ Since our first virtual training in May 2020, we have come a long way. We have successfully completed 7+ trainings and have received positive responses for the way they were conducted. While the pandemic disrupted business as usual, it also provided us with an opportunity to build capacity and experiment with technology.

There are exciting prospects for how we can continue to utilize virtual training in a post-pandemic world—potentially using hybrid training to make programmes more cost-effective and to increase efficiency. We are excited to keep building on our experiences to make training on TaRL more resilient to externalities, adaptable and accessible.