Reading: a way out of poverty

West African countries focus on teacher empowerment and learning outcomes to ensure effective early reading education

A three-year project assisted Burkina Faso, Senegal and Niger in developing effective reading instruction by aligning national curricula with teaching materials, training and assessment.

Effective reading education = 12% cut in global poverty

According to the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, if all students in low-income countries left school with elementary reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. In other words, such basic action as ensuring that those who study reading actually learn it would result in 12% cut in global poverty.

If children go to school, it is generally expected that they will learn to read. However, it seems to be less straightforward than that.

The global statistics show that an estimated 250 million children who attend primary school in developing countries are struggling to read even basic words, with about 115 million children expected to lack this elementary skill by grade four.

How does that happen even though education has been a priority in national and international development for years?

One reason is that, over the last two decades, both national policies and international aid for education have mainly focused on improving access to primary school and school completion rates – with quite steady progress. It is urgent now to address the challenge of quality. It is time to ensure that a child who goes to school, learns.

“We cannot ignore the fact that a quarter of a billion children who attend primary school are struggling to read,” says Amapola Alama, programme specialist at International Bureau of Education (IBE-UNESCO). “If we want education to play its determining role in contributing to the sustainable development goals, it is crucial that education systems develop relevant curricula that guide and support more effective teaching practices that in turn will lead to improved learning outcomes.”

Global problem at local level

In 2013, the IBE-UNESCO, sponsored by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), launched a three-year project “Improving learning outcomes in early grade reading: Integration of curriculum, teaching, learning materials and assessment” across three West African countries with comparable educational and social realities: Burkina Faso, Senegal and Niger. The project aimed to assist the three Ministries of Education (MoEs) to improve learning outcomes in reading and efficiencies of their basic education systems.

Before the project was implemented, data from 2007-2009, showed that the number of functionally illiterate students after five years in primary school in these countries required urgent action: Niger - 20%, Burkina Faso - 38% and Senegal - 38% (DESAS 2007 and PASEC 2009)

The project has drawn attention to the importance of quality education as a crucial condition for children to learn to read well in early years. It has also highlighted the correlation between the relevance and effectiveness of education systems and curriculum alignment with teaching materials, training and assessment. In each country, those responsible for larger curriculum reforms (also involved in early reading curriculum reforms) have gained a better understanding of these two key factors for educational success. By underscoring the need for all units in each MoE to work in a coordinated way and ensure that everyone understands what is involved in teaching children to read, the project has laid the grounds for the development of education systems that consistently enable positive learning outcomes for all.

A key outcome has been IBE-UNESCO’s 2017 report: Teaching to Learn and Read in a Multilingual Context. Ways forward for three sub-Saharan African countries (Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal) in French and English.

Additional key project milestones include:

• 2013. Three ministry officials from each of the three countries that have comparable educational and social realities were chosen to undertake the IBE-UNESCO diploma in curriculum run by the University of Tanzania;

• 2014. A diagnostic study resulted in a report “Teaching and learning of reading in a multilingual context: analyses, observations and recommendations for three sub-Saharan countries (Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal)” (IBE-UNESCO) to inform policy decisions translated into action plans to implement effective reading instruction;

• 2015. As a result, a number of capacity building activities took place with IBE-UNESCO support in order to start the production of several curriculum documents including a national vision on reading, pedagogical guide, a tool kit, teacher training modules;

• 2016 to 2017. Capacity development workshops for curriculum developers, teacher’ trainers, head teachers and teachers on how to improve teaching and learning to read and write were delivered, to use the new curriculum documents produced since 2015. At the final wrap-up session in Burkina Faso from 17-19 January, 2017, IBE-UNESCO and the countries presented project implementation results and reflected on how to guarantee their sustainability beyond the project life.