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By Emmanuel Ojok | Arua City
An evidence-based approach called Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) is making changes in the education space as rigorous impact evaluations have consistently demonstrated its effectiveness in improving learning outcomes related to basic literacy and numeracy.
The core of TaRL approach is grouping children according to their learning levels, focusing on basic reading and mathematics skills, and targeting instruction to a child’s current level.
Arua Youth Development Initiative (AYDI), a local Community Based Organisation in Arua City has been engaging stakeholders on this approach with Arua City education department.
Ricky Ojok Moses, the Executive Director of the CBO engaged with the stakeholders at Arua Hill Primary School, saying in the training all the stakeholders are involved to ensure the success of the approach.
“We start supporting the learners from primary three so that by the time they reach primary seven, they should be able to do well in school. The component I love so much is parental engagement that we have done in all schools. We have a model that we use to involve parents as the first educators. We also involve all the stakeholders including members from the SMC and PTA”, Ojok said.
AYDI ED Ricky Moses Ojok addresses the education stakeholders
The Executive Director also said that AYDI has partnered with Foundation for Inclusive Community Help (FICH) a grassroots, youth-led NGO based in Oyam district. FICH has also supported a number of programs of AYDI.
The head teacher Niva Primary School in Central division, Sally Adania, testifies that the TaRL approach has picked up well in the school.
“In our classes we have different age groups and different levels of understanding. We group the learners categorized at beginner level after that they are promoted to letter level where they are able to recognize words. From that they are taken to paragraphs and then they are able to write stories. It is so interesting and many children now love to be in groups”, Adania said.
Alfred Ochai, the deputy head teacher of Ozu Primary School, another implementing school in Ayivu division, says they put in too much effort to introduce TaRL but more is still needed.
“It was not easy to start the program since I and my head teacher were still new in the school. But we embraced it and engaged parents as well to ensure that the program picks up. We are on track but still need more support that we are ready to embrace”, Ochai said.
Zilly Buza, the Senior Inspector of Schools for Arua City implores the implementers to show commitment for the approach to be rolled out to more schools in the city.
“If AYDI is coming to support us in helping the teachers to teach reading and writing in schools, I believe we need to embrace this. So we want to see impact in these two schools (Niva and Ozu) because we want to spread the gospel from low and then move out”, Buza said.
The senior inspector of school calls for commitment and attitude change among the teachers’ success of such programs.
“This requires hard work and a change of mindset that is what affects us most. You try to come up with an innovation we think is another burden to us teachers. We need to embrace innovativeness and as Arua City, we want to improve the learning outcomes. We can improve this only if we are able to improve literacy and numeracy in our schools”, Buza added.
The educationists that included inspectors of schools from both Ayivu and Central divisions welcomed the approach, with appeals for the spreading of TaRL in other schools as well.
Background
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Uganda was already experiencing a learning crisis. The majority of children in school are not learning, with only 6% of children in Primary 4 able to read and understand a simple story and only 2% able to solve an age-appropriate math problem (World Bank, 2019).
TaRL was developed and refined in India by education NGO Pratham, and has been rigorously evaluated by Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) affiliated professors. Since 2015, the TaRL approach has been adopted in over 15 countries in Africa with support from TaRL Africa and partners.
The writer is a former GRIC Fellow at AYDI
