Breadth of Skills: Education Transformation by MG Publishing

A Bookazine Edition with BREADTH OF SKILLS: Education Transformation BY THE EDUCATION POLICYMAKERS NETWORK VOLUME 1

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MANAGING EDITOR SHANE SZARKOWSKI SENIOR EDITOR DOMINIC REGESTER SERIES EDITOR ADAM RATZLAFF AUTHORS LAILA ABU MONIKACONSTANZAQATOUSAHALARCÓNSALVATORYALUTEOLLIEBRAYBETHBYEJOÃOCOSTALÜTKE-ENTRUPGRACENGUGIMAINAEMISM.NJERUÁNGELANOCUAAMMAARAHMARTINUSFREDMUSISISHAILENDRASHARMAHAWASELEMANIHENANWANGFADIYARAK PUBLISHER ANA C. ROLD ART DIRECTOR MARC GARFIELD A Bookazine Edition with BREADTH OF SKILLS: Education Transformation BY THE EDUCATION POLICYMAKERS NETWORK VOLUME 1

COVID-19’s Lessons for Uganda’s ECD Landscape By Fred Musisi China Builds a System to Evaluate, Improve Early Education By Henan Wang Unpacking India’s Happiness Curriculum By Shailendra Sharma Promoting Learning for Kenya’s Nomadic Children By Emis M. Njeru Mainstreaming Values and Life Skills Education in Kenya’s Curriculum By Grace Ngugi Maina | 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 06081218202224283032

By Qatousah

AnIntroductionInternational Collaboration to Support Profound Education Transformation By Dominic Regester Closing the Global Skills Gap by Teaching Breadth of Skills By Constanza Alarcón, Ollie Bray, João Costa, Monika Lütke-Entrup, Ángela Nocua, and Fadi Yarak Learning Together: Early Childhood Development on Three Continents By Salvatory Alute, Beth Bye, Ammaarah Martinus, and Fred Musisi Tanzania Promotes Pre-Primary Education Interactive Learning By Hawa Selemani and Salvatory Alute Jordan Embraced New Learning, Teaching Methods Amid COVID-19

Laila Abu

place exceptional and unforeseen demands on educational policymakers across the world. Education sys tem transformation at any point in time is challenging, complex, and requires sustained political will, investments, and effort. It is particularly challenging now but absolutely essential. Education that is focused on developing a breadth of skills is a critical and legitimate response to these crises — as a response to address the holistic learning and well-being needs of chil dren during and beyond the pandemic; as a proactive and progressive approach for developing behaviors that can help us address the climate crisis and structural racial inequality; and as a component of fairer, more compassionate societies in the future. It is not the only change that is needed, but it is among the most critical. Children around the world need a breadth of skills to navigate an uncertain, complex, and rapidly changing world. There has been growing interest in achieving and measuring learning outcomes beyond fundamental numeracy and literacy, and the

BY DOMINIC REGESTER 6 | EDUCATION POLICYMAKERS NETWORK

ll of the essays in this collection have been written by members of the Education Policymakers Network. The EPN connects policymakers from different countries to work, learn and innovate together. Launched in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the network helps support and sustain education system trans formation around the need to develop a breadth of skills — cog nitive, creative, physical, social, and emotional — in young and school-aged children.

INTRODUCTION AN INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION TO SUPPORT PROFOUND EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION

We are living in a time of convergent crises: the global corona virus pandemic, the climate crisis, the struggle for racial justice, the polarization of societies, and a global learning crisis. Along side these crises the Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the very nature of work and economies around the world. The workforce of tomorrow will require new skills and unprecedented Thesenimbleness.challenges

The essays in this collection and the wider work of the Education Policymakers Network shows that this topic resonates in a variety of education systems around the world. Contributions from China, India, Jordan, Lebanon, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, and the USA not only demonstrate a wide range of approaches and strategies, but also the growing demand for education systems transformation. This is the first in a series of essay collections from the Educa tion Policymakers Network, with further collections planned for 2023. This work is incredibly timely and well aligned with the United Nations’ Transforming Education Summit, which is tak ing place during the UN General Assembly. One of the big shifts in education that seems to be taking place around the world at the moment is a movement away from competition between systems and towards much greater collaboration and shared learning. The Education Policymakers Network is certainly con sistent with this, and we would like to thank the Network mem bers for their ongoing participation and commitment.

***** Editorial Note: This essay collection is dedicated to the memory of Higinio González Calderón, Secretary of Ed ucation, State of Coahuila, Mexico and a much-valued member of the Education Policymakers Network until his untimely passing in 2021. ***** About the author: Dominic Regester is Director Education for Salzburg Global Seminar, responsible for designing, developing and implementing programs on education.

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challenge has the attention of many actors already — educa tors, parents and caregivers, and policymakers are all seeking ways to help children develop holistic skills.

The Education Policymakers Network is focused on education systems transformation that will positively impact the learning and development of three- to 12-year-olds. Among the many reasons for focusing on this age group is the fact that children need skills and mindsets that will help them become lifelong learners, navigate uncertainties from an early age, and develop to their full potential. This is the optimum period in children’s development for them to develop behaviors that will shape their future.

B etween 2021 and 2024, Salzburg Global Seminar is providing Education Policymakers (EPN) from 25 countries with a platform for peer learning and an exchange of ideas on how education can contribute to addressing the challenges of the 21st century.

There is consensus among participants that education must broaden from the traditional teaching of literacy, numeracy, subject-based content, and knowledge to more emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving and skills for communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation.

SKILLS BY

As part of a recent stock-taking exercise, members of an EPN learning circle from Colombia, Germany, Lebanon, Portugal, and Scotland reflected on the challenges of implementing breadth of skills into the formal curriculum of their countries. Members agreed that embedding breadth of skills into formal learning was already a key strategic part of educational reform in their countries. However, the process of translating strategy into policy and then implementation was both a complex and longitudinal process. To successfully embed a breadth of skills in education systems you need: • To go beyond acknowledgement — it is insufficient merely to acknowledge that a skill, for example creativity, is required in modern education. All actors within the system, such as children, parents, teach ers, school leaders and politicians, need to under THE SKILLS GAP BREADTH OF CONSTANZA ALARCÓN BRAY

BY TEACHING

| OLLIE

Participants widely agree that education reform has to include a focus on developing a breadth of skills that enable young people to tackle issues like reducing inequality, increasing participation, resolving conflicts, keeping peace, and the development of technologies that provide for both the well-being of humankind and the protection of the environment and climate.

GLOBAL

CLOSING

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• Skills pedagogy — It is almost impossible to learn social skills without other people, emotional skills without experiencing a range of emotions, and cognitive skills without knowledge transfer. Although interconnected, all of these skills look and feel different therefore require pedagogies that look and feel dif ferent from each other. For example, although direct instruction might be one way to develop cognitive skills, it is difficult to develop creative skills in this way. To develop creative skills children need to ‘cre ate’ something and this would normally involve ped agogies that allow children to imagine a new idea, create or build it, play with it to see if it works, share with others to get feedback, reflect on the learning, re-imagine the idea, and then create it again. This process is often described as the creative learning spiral (see fig: 1.0 on page 9).

• Progression frameworks — skills are both built on and developed over time. Skills should be developed through lived rather than contrived experiences in a range of appropriate contexts. This requires:

stand what is meant by each type of skill and why it is important. This requires:

As pedagogy and assessment are interconnected it is also impor tant to consider how to measure skills development. This requires:

• Skills assessment and measurement — any type of skills assessment must be aligned to the pedagogy.

• Local, regional, national and global skills application — while technology companies talk about global skills shortages and politicians talk about national skills shortages, for skills to be meaningful to chil dren skills acquisition needs to be embedded within curriculum and developed locally first. This requires:

• Shared definitions — different types of skills often mean different things to different people. It is almost impossible to develop skills in a systematic way with in formal education if the various actors within a sys tem who work with children are working to develop their individual interpretations of what a skill might be. You also must acknowledge that skills develop ment looks and feels different across geographical contexts (local and international) and at each stage of a child’s development. This requires:

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For example, while you can assess some cognitive skills through a written assessment, physical skills can only be measured through a practical task and creative skills should be more about measuring the creative process rather than the final product. It is very important that assessment metrics don’t inhibit the development of the skill. Imagine if you asked children to design a chair but in your measurement metrics only gave credit if the final design had 4 legs? This requires:

• Professional learning and leadership programs — to support the above, systems require national profes sional development programs (pre-service and in-ser vice) as well as an understanding that skills and the application of skills will continue to develop over time. These programs should be as much about ensuring that education professionals have an opportunity to develop their own skills as well as up-skilling in the pedagogy and assessment methodology to ensure that a range of holistic skills can be embedded within formal curricula.

***** About the authors:

João Costa is the Minister of Education, Ministry of Education, Portugal.

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Monika Lütke-Entrup is the Head of Unit, Niedersächsis ches Kultusministerium, Germany.

The Learning Circle concluded that regional and national sys tems of education are broadening their educational thinking and provision to equip students to enable a breadth of skills beyond literacy and numeracy. There remains much work to be done, however there is clear potential for countries to assist each other in developing approaches to implementation.

Alarcón is the Deputy Minister, Ministry of Education, Colombia.

Fadi Yarak is the Senior Advisor for Education in the Arab States - UNESCO Beirut Regional Bureau for Education, Lebanon.

Ángela Nocua is the Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Education, Ministry of National Education, Colombia.

Ollie Bray is the Strategic Director, Curriculum Innovation and Leadership, Education Scotland, United Kingdom.

Constanza

Over the past several months we have found common challeng es among their ECD systems. Shortcomings include a lack of cohesive approach or a lack of resources to implement good policies. Tanzania and South Africa are successful outliers. Tan zania has moved toward a more cohesive, well-funded system over the past five years. South Africa recently transferred the function of ECD from the department of Social Development to Basic Education. The United States, meanwhile, lags with similar governance systems — Canada and the EU — which have national systems of early education. Growing bodies of research show the positive impact of highquality early childhood education on both families and commu nities. As such, many Salzburg Fellows spoke on the need to ad vocate for more integrated early learning and development into their education service infrastructure. Members of this working group in particular identified six common areas of focus among our countries to help realize the potential of early childhood systems — illustrated by the model on page 13.

Salzburg Global Seminar recently hosted a convening of fellows from the Education Policymakers Network (EPN,) giving attendees a chance to learn from one another and gain an appreciation for other global perspectives on early child hood education efforts. Five of us — from each of the abovementioned countries — aim here to provide a brief update on where our countries and regions are in the development efforts towards quality ECD.

LEARNING TOGETHER: EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT ON THREE CONTINENTS

BY SALVATORY ALUTE BETH BYE AMMAARAH MARTINUS | FRED MUSISI

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anzania, Uganda, the United States, South Africa, and China have very different approaches to education and human services. Yet they face similar challenges when supporting early childhood development (ECD).

1. Child Outcomes, Ready for Learning in School

Each country lacks valid and reliable tools for measuring learning outcomes. Most assessment methods in common use are narrow in their scope of measure. To measure more complex outcomes such

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Each country wants to expand access to ECD for more families. Currently, programs are a mix of public and privately funded centers. Affordability and availability of programs are common challenges for families trying to access childcare and/or preschool.

• Uganda cites the lack of proper assessment tools for 2-5 years old children as a major system challenge.

• United States assessments vary by city and state and are often heavily academic in focus. This makes gauging the impact and child outcomes from early learning interventions very difficult except for in small, controlled studies.

2. Improving Access and Equity

as vocabulary development, social skills, and problem solving is difficult. While these measurements would do a better job at measuring the long-term impact of early learning programs, implementing them is challenging. Individual concerns in member nations include:

• Tanzania has made significant progress. Following the new policy on fee free education in 2015, the enrollment in Pre-primary has been increased up to 78%. The government has now set the standards to make sure all children with age cohort 3-5, including those with special need, attends pre-primary school.

• South Africa does not have universal testing of learner readiness at the Early Childhood Development level and has embarked on testing as children enter grade 1, but even this is not done systemwide.

The promise of positive outcomes for children in school and later life is grounded in programs that offer high quality early learning, often coupled with supportive services for families. All six have efforts aimed at improving quality. In the US, more than a decade of decentralized state and fed eral investments into a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) have failed to show an impact on child development. Federal childcare funding to states sets aside funding for quality improvement efforts. It is difficult to measure the impact of these efforts because they are so decentralized, and states lack data systems that can effectively evaluate these efforts.

4. Increase Public Investment While all five nations have a history of investments and national structures overseeing K-12 education, challenges regarding some aspects of service delivery, funding, and implementa tion. Five nations all lack a clear national early childhood education effort that includes policy, implementation, and a funding mechanism.

• In the U.S., families spend up to 25% of their income on childcare, and many don’t have the means to pay. In total, only 44% of children in the US attend pre school in 2020. President Biden proposed an initia tive that would cap family childcare costs at 7%, but it has failed to pass Congress.

• Several trends in Uganda have driven increased need for early childcare. Extended families are declining, the effects of urbanization, work-driven migration, and the increasing participation of women in the la bor market. Yet, gross enrollment for early childhood programs in Uganda currently stands at only 18.7%.

5. Social and Emotional Skills’ Development and Wellbeing

3. Improving the Quality of Care and Education

Each country faces pressures to push academic skills in the ear ly years, despite evidence that young children may not be ready for these, physically or cognitively. Research and early learning leaders are clear that preschool programs are more successful when they are grounded in developmental approaches — a breadth of skills. The challenge, like with primary education, is that policy makers, curriculum specialists and administrators

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• Among our countries, Western Cape, South Africa has done the most work in this area. They have ex plored using behavioral science to explain how con text influences caregiver behavior in poor communi ties. The diagram below demonstrates some of these barriers graphically.

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• In the U.S., there are several new social and emo tional curriculum and frameworks. For example, The Ruler is an approach with promising outcomes for children and staff.

• Uganda sites that classroom practices are often too academic and inflexible for young children.

often press for outcomes on academic assessments. The effect is that teaching practices are dedicated to skills that are more appropriate for older children, leaving young children without some critical preliminary social emotional skills that are critical for later school success.

• Interesting insights emerged which could transcend to other Global South countries. Some of these include caregivers’ view that play-based learning is simply not on caregivers’ radar as the role of parents is to provide basic needs like clothing or food to the children. Other findings include that caregivers assume that their children are not ready for learning yet, especially if less than three years old. Low self-efficacy of caregivers also emerged strongly — where parents don’t believe they have the capacity to execute the behaviors necessary to help their children develop cognitively.

• Some potential, preliminary design directions emerged which could be explored in other contexts. Designs to target caregiver behavior should include reshaping car egivers’ understanding of the benefits of play and learn ing how to integrate play into their everyday lives.

• Another possibility was to remold caregivers’ under standing of the benefits of play and assist caregivers with psycho-social support to deal with contextual stressors. And lastly make young children’s (i.e., under 3-years old) cognitive development visible to caregivers.

• The Tanzania Institute of Education [TIE] launched the PrePrimary Education Curriculum in 2016 which emphasizes on child-centered teaching approach in which the child is the center of the learning process which are meant to develop skills in pre-literacy, numeracy, and literacy skills. In 2018, Tanzania with UNICEF support, developed a mod ule for Pre-primary teachers intending to provide ongoing training for teachers to continue building professional ca pacity to facilitate the child effectively learning.

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• In the U.S., there are no common teaching requirements in private preschools or childcare. Preschools located in public schools generally require a college degree and certifications. Higher education institutions are not mo tivated to provide early learning degrees due to the in consistent requirements, and the low pay for the field has reduced the number of students entering the career.

While this example is South African focused, the lessons learned here could transcend to other countries and therefore sharing in these circles has provided us with opportunities to do so.

Unlike education professionals for more formal school, early child development professionals have a wide range of training and expertise. While we know the ages of birth to five include significant brain development, the investments in teachers’ de velopment and programs do not match the brain development, and its implications for later educational success.

• Future work in the form of ideation, prototyping, and deep user-testing is needed to ensure intervention de signs directly address the barriers, are feasible to imple ment, and are desired by caregivers.

6. Professional Development and Professional Standards

Fred Musisi is a senior lecturer at Muteesa, Royal University and a policy researcher in the Department of Education, Kingdom of Buganda, Uganda.

About the authors: Salvatory Alute is the District Education Officer: President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government, Aru sha District Council, Tanzania. Beth Bye is the commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood in AmmaarahConnecticut.Martinus

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4. Research and case study options for early learning out come measures that are designed for young children that are being used in other nations.

Recommendations for joint ECD efforts by Salzburg Global Seminar Fellows:

*****

is the director of policy, research and analysis at the Western Cape Government, Department of the Premier, in South Africa.

1. Joint Social and Emotional efforts among fellows and consider a workgroup on early childhood education.

3. Joint meeting with fellows from nations that have achieved a more robust national early learning system focused on common challenges.

2. Further integration of how behavioral insights to be used to better understand reasons for parental and educator engagement and disengagement.

TANZANIA

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nvestment in Early Childhood Education (ECE) involves a type of program that serves children in their preschool years. Early childhood education — and pre-primary education in particular — includes all learning activities designed for children between 3-8 years old. This is a particularly critical period, as it is the time when growth and development of the human brain are at their peak.

INTERACTIVEPRE-PRIMARYPROMOTESEDUCATIONLEARNING HAWA SELEMANI AND ALUTE

Over the past five years, Tanzania has emphasized improving the quality of pre-primary education. One of the initiatives seeks to en sure that a conducive environment for teaching and learning is cre ated and maintained in schools. In support of this initiative, several organizations including UNICEF, USAID, and Children in Crossfire are supporting this initiative by helping to equip schools with the

SALVATORY

The Effectiveness of the Interactive Learning Approach

ECE programs are essentially carried out through observations made by several studies conducted in Tanzania, which examine why preprimary education is considered so important. Pre-primary educa tion has a strong bearing on attendance and participation by young children once they enter primary school, helping children to become more self-determining and confident, thereby promoting their allaround development.

The Education and Training Policy published in 2014 provides the mac ro context for pre-primary education in Tanzania. The policy, among other things, emphasizes partnerships in the provision of services to young children and specifies that pre-primary classrooms shall be attached to primary schools. Consequently, pre-primary education in Tanzania is provided by public and private schools/centers. Children enrolled in pre-primary education in Tanzania are aged 3 to 5 years. Effective teaching in pre-primary education requires well-trained teachers who can effectively use learning and materials to explore children’s potential. However, Tanzania currently suffers a shortage of well-trained teachers, teaching/learning material, and appropriate spaces for teaching. This has contributed significantly to the dete rioration of the learning environment in the country. To improve this condition, several initiatives have been adopted that include a class room interactive approach.

*****

About the authors: Hawa Selemani is the National Early Childhood Education Coordinator: Ministry of Education Science and Technology, SalvatoryTanzania.

Alute is the District Education Officer: President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government, Aru sha District Council, Tanzania.

necessary resources to enrich learning environments for children. The support includes catalyst funds to transform pre-primary and standard 1 and 2 classrooms into stimulating learning environments in selected regions in Mbeya, Njombe, and Songwe. Teacher train ing on the production and use of teaching and learning materials, classroom transformation, and establishment of reading corners/libraries was initiated to ensure that all pre-primary teachers have the required teaching qualities for this level of education. Moreover, the publication of different storybooks for children was made available to schools for each pupil to enhance learning through reading and writing. Each school was also provided with a set minimum of wood en teaching and learning materials (squares, cubes, triangles, aba cus, dice, cards, number tree, number blocks, games, puzzles, etc.) to facilitate effective teaching and motivate children’s participation in the learning process. Several indigenous programs were conducted to assess the effec tiveness of community engagement in child play and learning in Tanzania. The program conducted in the two regions of Pwani and Kagera show that the practice of the interactive approach in early years promotes a child’s development in all domains. In this program parents and teachers participated by emphasizing plays, songs, proverbs, and storytelling to promote the development of children’s higher mental function. The program revealed that during child-rear ing, play with songs and narration can involve parents and caregivers together to promote active learning. This involvement helps children enjoy learning freely and happily, learning skills such as listening, speaking, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity. Plays, songs, and stories can also be used as effective tools during childrearing practices and learning to identify children with special needs as early as possible. A sensitive caregiver will note the deviation of a child in play, raising the possibility of special attention. Through plays one can observe improper hand-eye coordination, poor communication, poor body movement, immature or inconsistent memory, poor vision, and impaired hearing. This is a convincing argument to use interactive methodologies in child-rearing practices as well as in teaching and learning to promote the child’s higher mental function among children in Tanzania.

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BY LAILA ABU QATOUSAH

B efore COVID-19, students in Jordan could only learn inperson at public schools. Each day, children had to attend crowded classrooms. Direct teacher-to-student instruction was the preferred method of education, and teachers bore a great deal of responsibility in the process while parental involvement was very limited. The roles of teachers and parents have shifted since COVID-19, however, with new teaching strategies being adopted to guarantee equal and inclusive access to education for all children in Jordan. These new strategies, still in early stages of devel opment, have great potential for improving equitable learner access across Jordan, even after the pandemic has run its course.

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Jordan is in the heart of the Middle East and has for years been beset by many political and economic challenges. Some of these challenges - such as the repatriation of Jordanian expats after the Gulf War and an influx of Syrian refugees - have created serious challenges for Jordan’s public schools. The number of students in classrooms approximately doubled, meaning more crowded classrooms and heavier loads on teachers. Jordan’s Ministry of Education (MOE) sought to meet these challenges by building more schools/classrooms and providing better professional development for teachers. Unfortunately, not much focus was given to using technology as a tool for instruction, and the con cept of distance learning was never introduced.

JORDAN

In March 2020, COVID-19 caused the closure of all Jordan’s schools and it became necessary to quickly create ways for students to learn from home. To meet this challenge, the MOE turned to public me dia, available technology, and motivated teachers. The MOE plan in cluded three phases: response, recovery, and sustainability. During the response phase, all core subjects were filmed and screened on the national TV channels so that students all over the kingdom could watch them and learn. This immediate response to the sudden cri ses was very simple and direct but students were unable to interact with each other or their teachers. To meet this gap, decision-makers implemented the DARSAK platform. DARSAK is a virtual hub that allowed teachers to track student progress more simply while allowing students to watch any given lesson more than once without charge. In the recovery phase, the MOE developed the new learning manage ment system, “Noor Space,” which was linked to EMIS to allow teach ers and schools to track attendance, monitor engagement, and set EMBRACED NEW LEARNING, TEACHING METHODS AMID COVID-19

online assessments. Accordingly, students felt close to their teachers again. Moreover, the MOE created a platform for professional development where teachers could learn best practices to improve their online teaching skills.

There are challenges to maintaining a hybrid system in a developing country such as Jordan. Challenges include poor infrastructure in public schools, lacking technology and smart devices, limited in ternet coverage especially in remote areas, and a lack of plans for including students with disabilities.

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Leveraging Technology for Jordan’s Future Education System Schools are open again, but the MOE intends distance learning to remain an important part of the education process, calling distance learning “an important method of teaching and learn ing.” Moving forward, then, Jordan will adopt a hybrid teacher and learning system.

To address these gaps, the MOE should seek solid partnerships with organizations that have the capacity to improve digital infrastruc ture - particularly in disadvantaged areas. Also, the MOE should work closely with education experts to identify key areas of the learning loss in order to develop innovative and responsive remedial pro grams to bridge the deep gap between what was anticipated for the future on the one hand and the current unsatisfying learning reality on the other hand. ***** About the author: Laila Abu Qatousah is an educational supervisor and acting head of the training coordination department in the Ministry of Education in Jordan.

While parents became key players in the education of their children during school closures and they have become inseparable partners in the process, many parents struggle to maintain close interaction with learning. This is exacerbated by poverty - which increased signif icantly during quarantine as unemployment doubled. Many families were not able to afford buying smart devices for their children and in some disadvantaged areas parents didn’t even have smartphones. This means that their children were not able to access educational content which was uploaded on the platforms. This led to “learning loss” and a growing disparity between the students who managed to access the e-platforms and continued learning with their classmates and their teachers on the one hand, and students who were unable to access the e-content.

T his article highlights Uganda’s early childhood educa tion (ECE) and early childhood development (ECD) landscape, surveying how it has evolved from the prepandemic status quo to the contemporary situation. While COVID-19 negatively impacted the ECE/ECD space, there are some longer-term positive impacts we can identify as education was placed nearer to the community. Poli cymakers have an opportunity to learn from this and enact poli cies that improve ECE/ECD accessibility. Like the rest of the world, Uganda was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The country went into lockdown on March 18, 2020. From that point until January 2022, schools were closed and students had to find ways to learn from home. With school shut downs lasting nearly two years, Uganda was among the countries with the longest period of shutdown in the education sector. Uganda is a land locked country located in East Africa whose estimated population of 45 million people is equivalent to 0.59% of the total world population. The country has one of the most youthful populations in the world with 55% of the popula tion below 18 years as per the last census. (2014.) The country’s education system features an early childhood program of preprimary that caters to children aged 3-5 years. Current social and economic trends — such as the declining influence of the extended family system, urbanization and work-driven migra tion, and increasing participation of women in the labor market — have been disruptive to more traditional childcare arrange ments, leading to a high demand for ECE in Uganda. Despite these trends, ECE enrollment for the country stands at only 18.7%, meaning that only 1 out of 5 children aged 3-5 years currently accesses pre-primary services. These enrollment numbers are low compared to Uganda’s neighbors. In Kenya for instance, enrollment is at 53.5%; Tanzania at 35.5%, and Rwanda at 29% as of 2017. Uganda’s low level of early ECE enrollment attributed to several factors. These include: the inability of par ents to pay fees, uneven distribution of ECD centers around urban areas, and generally negative sentiments about ECE — driven by a lack of awareness about ECE among most parents.

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COVID-19’S LESSONS FOR UGANDA’S ECD LANDSCAPE BY FRED MUSISI

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About the author: Fred Musisi is a senior lecturer at Muteesa, Royal University and a policy researcher in the Department of Education, Kingdom of Buganda, Uganda.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, all enrollments for ECE ended as ECD centers were closed. Yet there were some positive developments. Some informal ECD centers were established within neighborhoods — from market centers to private homes. The establishment of these informal centers was driven by increas ing difficulties around children being forced to stay at home, causing disruption to the lives of working parents. This, accord ingly, raised awareness and appreciation of the utility of preprimary schools. Teachers and caregivers, meanwhile, were motivated to informally look for and recruit young learners so they could continue to earn a living. These unofficial centers operated for around one year, and policy makers should take away several lessons from those operations. Centers operated within neighborhoods, which increased accessibility. Centers also operated separately from school structures, becoming less academically oriented and concentrating more on meaningful play — which facilitated a more tailored teaching and learning process. Finally, these distributed centers don’t contribute to the overhead costs associated with school systems — meaning costs are lower for parents to put their children into these centers as compared to formal school settings.

Policymakers in Uganda should take these lessons to heart and give support to neighborhood ECD centers, helping them to flourish. Creating more centers away from schools will increase accessibility. We can help to make this possible by making markets and community centers available to caregivers. Further, in communities where there aren’t enough qualified caregivers, professional development programs can be enacted to ensure each community has the support of a sufficient number of wellqualified caregivers. *****

CHINA BUILDS A SYSTEM TO EVALUATE, IMPROVE EARLY EDUCATION HENAN WANG

In order to build a system for scientifically assessing the quality of kindergarten education, the Ministry of Education in China is sued the Quality Assessment Guide for Kindergarten Education in February, 2022. The guide is intended to promote the physi cal and mental health of children and improve the quality of the kindergarten education process. Fifteen key indicators and 48 key points were identified in five areas: guidance, childcare and security, educational process, education environment, and teaching staff. This provides a scientific implementation guide and clear action basis for preschool education.

ducation evaluation is an important part of the con struction of a high-quality education system, inform ing the development direction of education systems reform. Formulating scientific and effective quality assessment standards has become agreed-upon best practice for countries around the world. National and region al governments are increasingly exploring strategies to better monitor the quality of early education and care. The scale of preschool education in China is the largest in the world, with 294,800 kindergartens nationwide according to 2021 data. There are 48,052,100 children in kindergartens, with a gross enrollment rate of 88.1%. China is in a critical period of transition from high-speed development to high-quality de velopment. How to promote the quality of kindergartens while increasing the quantity?

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• Guidance: Guidance for the kindergarten aims to promote the vision, moral enlightenment, and educational philosophy of preschool education. This guidance includes 3 key indicators and 7 examina tion points. It aims to help make China a leader in preschool education, bring kindergarten education in line with national education policy, and ensure the direction of socialist kindergarten.

• Childcare and Security: In terms of childcare and se curity, the Quality Assessment Guide identified 3 key indicators and 11 key points focused on healthcare,

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• Teaching Staff: In terms of the teaching staff, the Quality Assessment Guide identified 4 key indicators and 9 key points focused on teachers’ ethics, staff ing, professional development, and incentive mecha nisms. The aim is to strengthen the construction of teachers’ team and take effective measures to en courage teachers to love their jobs and devote themselves to education. FIG. 1 Key Points of the Quality Assessment Guide for Kindergarten Education.

• Education Environment: This thematic area includes 2 key indicators and 4 key points focused on facilities and play materials. The aim is to help kindergartens to create an educational environment which is rich and suitable — catering to the interests of children while effectively supporting learning and exploration.

living care, and safety. The aim here is to help kin dergartens to better promote the health, safety, and physical and mental wellbeing of students.

• Education Process: This thematic area includes 3 key indicators and 17 key points focused on activities, teacher-child interaction, and cooperation between the kindergarten and families. The aim is to promote educational games, effective teacher-child interaction, create mechanisms for kindergarten-family coeducation, and promote the physical and mental de velopment of children.

About the author: Henan Wang is the Director of Training Department at the National Training Center for Kin dergarten Principals, China.

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The Quality Assessment Guide includes three evaluation methods. The first emphasizes the education process, assessing the process from three lenses: activity organization, teacher-child interaction, and kindergarten and family cooperation. This is consistent with the international evaluation of preschool edu cation processes. Second, kindergartens are encouraged to carry out self-assessments as a standard means of improving teachers’ professional ability. This promotes self-diagnosis, re flection, and the improvement of kindergartens. The third as sessment method is direct observation of the classroom. The duration of classroom observation should not be less than half a day of continuous natural observation, and the coverage of ob servation should not be less than one-third of the total number of classes at all ages, so as to ensure comprehensive, objective, and true evaluation.

For a long time, there have been problems in the quality of China’s kindergarten education evaluation. These problems in clude an emphasis on results but ignoring processes, empha sizing hardware while ignoring connotation, and emphasizing external evaluations but ignoring self-evaluation. The Quality Assessment Guide for Kindergarten Education will be a signifi cant and powerful tool for helping kindergartens to establish scientific evaluation orientation and implement scientific edu cation practice. As an important part of education evaluation in the construction of a high-quality education system in China, “the Quality Assessment Guide for Kindergarten Education” will play an im portant role in promoting the development of kindergartens, which has brought a wave of learning and practicing in the whole country. *****

In terms of implementation, the government requires local edu cation administrative departments to organize special expert teams to carry out the evaluation. These evaluations should be conducted at least once every 3-5 years to ensure the quality of kindergarten education.

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“Breadth of skills” encompasses a range of skills covering cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral dimensions. Flowing from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4- “to ensure inclusive and quality ed ucation for all and promote lifelong learning,” target 4.7 unpacks the idea of breadth of skills more clearly as “education for sustainable de velopment and global citizenship.” It explains further that “all learners must acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, peace and non-violence, appreciation for cultural diversity among several other things”. Clearly, in the prevailing education set up, there is very little scope to consciously enable learners to develop a breadth of skills. This is where Delhi’s Happiness Curriculum steps in. Apart from attaining its curricular goal, it also seeks to bridge the gap between prevailing practices and aspirations for the future.

BY SHAILENDRA SHARMA 28 | EDUCATION POLICYMAKERS NETWORK

UNPACKING INDIA’S HAPPINESS CURRICULUM

“ Ilearn here, not taught”, responded an eleven-year-old child in the “Happiness” class of a Delhi government school when asked by a visitor what happens in this class. This response is significant because ever since India’s formal school system came into existence, the emphasis has been on teaching. The assumption was (and quite often still is,) that a child is an empty pot and the role of the school is to fill that pot with useful knowledge with the help of teachers and textbooks.

To summarize this process, here is what happens. A child is enrolled in a class appropriate to his/her age. There is a prescribed syllabus for that class, an approved textbook for different subjects and a teach er teaching a subject. Teaching-learning is led by a teacher in class wherein they cover the chapters at a certain pace. There are periodic tests and term end exams to score learners. While this approach may ensure accountability in big education systems, the key question is whether such a process provides any scope for building a breadth of skills. That brings us to the core component of this article — what is breadth of skills and why is it important for today’s learners?

The fallout of this ‘empty pot’ assumption is that teaching-learning becomes transactional and, with outcomes measured through as sessment tools like standardized exams.

The Happiness Curriculum and Breadth of Skills

Two critical approaches set the Happiness curriculum apart. First, the happiness class is placed equally among the academic subjects at par with other core subjects. Second, it consciously moves away from conventional methods of assessment. At the beginning of the class, the teacher and learners open the day with five minutes of mindful ness meditation. This practice helps learners focus their attention to the present moment. Once a week, the entire period is devoted to mindful meditation practice. In addition to mindful meditation, two other components of the Happi ness Curriculum are stories and activities. The stories have been shortlisted keeping the context of the learners in mind. The teacher narrates a story, referring to the handbook. Thereafter, the floor is open for discussion.

Introduced in all Delhi government schools (also referred to as, ‘public schools’) in 2018, from kindergarten up until grade 8 covering learners in the age group of 3-14 years, the Happiness Curriculum works on the behavioral dimension. The goal of this curriculum is to promote the social-emotional wellbeing of learners through critical thinking and self-reflection.

About the author: Shailendra Sharma is the Principal Advisor to the Director of Education, Government of Delhi, India.

There are two salient features of this process. First, every child gets a chance to express their views on the content and the role played by different characters in the story. Secondly, there is no right or wrong response. Teachers have been trained to refrain from trying to “cor rect” the learners. A similar process is adopted for activities as well where learners get to reflect upon their actions in real situations. This class does not follow the conventional pen and paper assess ment. Instead, the teachers make note of the change in the behavior of learners. It ranges from the level of participation of learners in class to how they change in their behavior toward peers, family, and oth ers in school. Some of the key outcomes recorded by teachers show that there has been a decline in the practice of bullying, an increase in the ability to focus more in other classes and so on. This year, the government plans to introduce a set of formal indicators to evaluate the impact of the Happiness Curriculum among learners. The experience of the last four years is convincing; the focus of learn ing needs to shift toward building a breadth of skills and values. With the introduction of two more curriculums — Entrepreneurship and Deshbhakti (citizenship), Delhi schools are now on the path to work on the mind set of learners to make learning more holistic and con temporary, encompassing the breadth of skills in a true sense and prepare learners for the emerging*****world.

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Low-Cost Boarding School

NACONEK has established Low-Cost Boarding Schools as safe spaces for learners faced by challenges of the nomadic lifestyle. These schools serve as a preventive measure against early marriages for girls, who are often forced into marriage at an immature age. The government funds this initiative alongside development partners. Mobile Schools Initiative Mobile Schools is a community-led initiative that provides a flexible model of education that is well suited to the nomadic pastoralist life style. They are temporary sites erected to serve as classrooms. This unique intervention requires teachers to be equipped with a unique

PROMOTING LEARNING FOR KENYA’S NOMADIC CHILDREN

BY EMIS M. NJERU

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T he Constitution of Kenya states that every child has the right to a free education. Beyond being a right, education is also a crucial tool for personal and economic development. This means the government has a critical responsibility to ensure that every child has access to quality education. In Kenya, most children in arid and semi-arid areas encounter insurmountable obstacles to accessing quality educa tion. Some of these obstacles include perennial drought, insecu rity, retrogressive cultural practices, and nomadism. These obsta cles make it difficult for these students to compete for the few resources in Kenya. Many of them do not complete their primary education and those who do perform poorly in national examina tions like the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE). This has resulted in a cycle of poverty in these areas.

The National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK) has initiated innovative projects aimed at addressing challenges of equity, access, and quality. This is through a program referred to as NACONEK Integrated Water, Food and Energy for Sustainable Schools (NIWFESS). NIWFESS aspires to provide basic essentials for the child like drinking water, adequate and nutritious food, and water for sanitation and hygiene. The program also provides teen age girls with menstrual hygiene kits. Some other innovative projects include the establishment of Low-Cost Boarding Schools and Mobile Schools in underserved, remote areas.

set of teaching skills and learning materials to enable them to teach in a mobile set up.

COVID-19 Pandemic and New Initiatives

The government is also planning an initiative to be carried out in the 2022-2023 strategic plan which will establish offline Learning Resource Centers and Mobile Caravans. These learning centers will use offline internet connectivity to serve several remote schools. This initiative will essentially upgrade mobile schools, turning them into containerized learning centers strategically placed in nomadic pathways. These centers will be well-equipped to address skill de velopment for out of school youth as well as learning centers for basic Thereeducation.arestillsome challenges requiring additional action to pre pare children belonging to nomadic groups to fairly compete with the rest of the children in the nation. Such affirmative action should consider the underlying factors that work against these children’s success such as lack of clean water, food insecurity, oppressive gender roles, ethnic and external conflicts, and inadequate teachers. Moreover, as we seek to embrace the breadth of skills that are inclusive, all innovations should be gender sensitive and apprecia tive of cultural diversity. ***** About the author: Emis M. Mjeru is the Deputy to the CEO, Na tional Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK).

Great gains had been achieved since 2015 through the Low-Cost Boarding school and the Mobile Schools initiatives. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, many of these gains were lost. The prolonged closure of school and financial drawbacks that resulted from the pandemic exposed learners to early marriages, forced labor, and a lack of motivation to return to schools when they reo pened. According to a joint survey conducted by NACONEK and UNICEF in June 2021, around 70% of Kenya’s learners had dropped out of school due to challenges of the pandemic. Kenya’s government sought to minimize education disruption during the pandemic by establishing “the Kenya Education Cloud.” Through this initiative, lessons were aired by television and radio, but learn ers in arid and semi-arid areas lacked internet connections and elec tricity — and thus were left out. The government has since worked with development partners to introduce solar-powered radios to remote areas for the transmission of lessons. This has been effective, enhancing learning in literacy and numeracy. The radios have also helped support accelerated learning programs in the region.

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While parents and the community play the primarily responsibil ity in nurturing values, education also plays an important role. Thus, education sectors need to build a repertoire of relevant values and skills which should be integrated into the curriculum. This includes capacity building for teachers so they can better interpret and implement critical non-academic skills through a whole of school approach.

hild wellbeing is critical for the survival of any society. Like adults, children face a myriad of challenges owing to the various socio-cultural and economic dynamics of their society. At times these challenges can lead to behavioral crises — which are experienced the world over. The everyday challenges faced by children need to be well managed otherwise they can escalate into problems capable of jeopardizing learners’ psychosocial wellbeing, academic success, and career aspirations. Education should provide tools for learn ers to face these challenges, equipping them not only with cognitive tools but also values and life skills that will help them thrive in the modern era.

Ages one (1) to twelve (12) are critical formative years for the nurtur ing of values and development of skills in an individual. Yet many children currently don’t have support to learn life skills — values and psychosocial competencies — which they need to function as responsible citizens. It is imperative that children start to acquire these values and develop life skills from the earliest stage in their lives.

Kenya recognizes that values and soft skills are just as important to a country’s socio-economic development as are academic and technical skills. With this in mind, Kenya’s government has made values and life skills development an integral part of the educa tion curriculum. Teaching and learning materials are evaluated to ensure that value and life skills maintain a prominent place in the curriculum. Life skills education equips learners with psycho social competencies to manage challenges of everyday life. The following diagrams show the values and life skills that are inte grated in the curriculum. VALUES AND LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION IN KENYA’S CURRICULUM

MAINSTREAMING

Mainstreaming Values and Skills in the Curriculum

BY GRACE NGUGI MAINA 32 | EDUCATION POLICYMAKERS NETWORK

Values and life skills are not taught as stand-alone disciplines but are integrated in the formal, non-formal, and informal dimensions of the curriculum thus adopting the whole of school approach. The learning environment is expected to provide learners with experiences and activities that are laden with values and create an environment that is safe, caring, and supportive. Adults have an awesome responsibility to exemplify the values they would like learners to nurture. To a large extent, values and life skills are caught and not taught.

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The overarching goal of values and life skills education is “to nur ture values in learners to become empowered, engaged and ethical citizens for positive and holistic transformation of society.” Nurturing of values and development of life skills will enable the learner to:

• Have a secure sense of personal identity.

• Apply critical thinking skills towards in finding ethical solutions to challenges in society.

• Demonstrate stewardship of resources for sustainable Learnersdevelopment.spendmost

• Demonstrate ethical behavior that fosters responsible citizenship and good governance.

of their formative years in school. This presents opportunities for the curriculum to mold and reinforce values and life skills upon which their character is formed. Thus, the learning process should both nurture and assess values and life skilsl throughout the curriculum. Values-based education should be implemented through the Whole-School Approach (WSA), a strategy that recognizes the effectiveness of mobilizing the entire school community and its resources towards improving the wellbeing of the learner. The interrelationship between values, life skills and character formation cannot be separated in the quest of bringing about a holistic development of learners who will desire to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. *****

• Demonstrate cultural, moral, and religious consciousness. • Demonstrate empathy and respect for others.

About the author: Grace Ngugi Maina is the Deputy Director in charge of Special Programs of Kenya.

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Expected Outcomes of Values and Life Skills Education.

A Bookazine Edition with