Implementing institution: IPA
Country: Kenya
Source: IPA
Execution period: 2010 - 2012
Plataforma de Prácticas Efectivas:
Reduce dropout and improve students' reading, official and native language skills.
Training and assistance to teachers, complemented by small reading groups based on peer learning.
Improved instruction increased children's reading skills in Swahili and English and reduced the dropout rate by 50 percent.
Within the framework of the state Health and Literacy Intervention (HALI) program, the Innovations Poverty Action Lab (IPA) has implemented intensive trainings for teachers and reading groups among children to increase their reading skills in rural children. In 2003, Kenya adopted universal free elementary education and most children are now enrolled in school. Due to problems with resources and infrastructure, many children are not learning to read effectively in their first years of school.
HALI is the product of an alliance between the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. It includes different complementary components related to health and childhood. Their conceptual starting point is that healthy children do better in school. As a result, IPA evaluated two strategies that focused on children’s ability to read Swahili and English. On the one hand, it sought to improve instruction in the first two years of elementary school through a cycle of teacher training (5 days), the delivery of 140 reading course plans covering Swahili and English, as well as advice to teachers through weekly electronic messages. On the other hand, the intervention included the formation of reading groups among children when they entered 3rd grade. The innovation is based on 6th graders (“mentors”) reading with their 3rd grade peers twice a week over a 6-month period.
Like many countries in the sub-Saharan region, Kenya is characterized by a young, rural population: children under 14 represent 40% of the total population (range 15-24 20%) while in rural areas it is 74%. These areas are home to high levels of vulnerability, low-productivity activities as well as shortages of basic services such as health and education.
At the educational level, a 2010 assessment found that more than half of 3rd graders were unable to infer meaning from short text passages. While the country has succeeded in increasing the net participation of children and young people at the elementary and secondary levels, there remain about one million children who were not attending the formal education system in 2012. That number dropped considerably between 2006 and 2007 (minus 44%) but returned almost to its initial levels the following year to remain more or less stable until now.
The number of illiterates in the country has increased since 2000: from 3 million people to 5.9 million by 2015. With respect to the youth population (15-24 years of age) the same number went from 400,000 to 1.3 million in the same period. The trends reveal a highly complex educational context in Kenya, which tends to worsen along with the decline, since 2006, in the proportion of public expenditure on education in relation to GDP (from 7 to 5% at present).
The Innovation Poverty Action (IPA) conducted a pilot evaluation to assess the impacts of the program in relation to children’s reading abilities and drop-out rates. 101 public elementary schools were randomly selected and divided into 4 groups according to the level of intervention: instruction in reading (A), reading groups (B), instruction in reading and reading groups (C) and control group (D).
A total of 300 students participated in the study. Comparison of the average results between group A and group C has shown a significant increase in children’s reading abilities, both in Swahili and English. In addition, teacher training has made it possible to reduce student drop-out rates by 50 per cent. With respect to reading groups, children’s interest in reading has increased significantly, but their skills have not. For a cost of US$ 8.29 per student, innovation offers a timely alternative for countries with low net enrolment rates at the elementary level.
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