Revitalizing Teacher Professional Support and Continuous Development in East Africa: The Case of AKF School Improvement Projects School Cluster Strategy
This paper shares experiences and lessons on the evolution of the design and implementation of the AKF SIPs 'school cluster' strategy in East Africa and its effects on decentralizing teacher professional support and revitalizing continuous professional development at the primary school level.
In-service training is a strategy that ministries of education in East Africa have for long regarded as essential to improve quality of teacher education and teaching and learning. However, this strategy has acquired added significance, especially since the introduction of EFA-inspired policies in primary schools in East Africa between 1997 and 2003. Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya have all introduced UPE-related policies with dire consequences for educational quality.
Public primary schools throughout East Africa are faced with numerous challenges due to effects of the education policy reforms. Teachers are faced with the problem of large classes, schools lack adequate facilities such as classrooms, teaching and learning materials are inadequate, nearly all public primary schools are understaffed and supervision and inspection services are overstretched.
The threat to education quality is increasingly apparent as initial evidence of low learner achievements emerge. Meanwhile, no learner is to be denied admission to primary school and parents are not expected to pay school levies/fees, unless in exceptional circumstances. The immediate challenge is coming up with mechanisms to enable primary schools cope with such adverse effects of UPE.
AKF has developed and supported school improvement projects (SIPs) in East Africa for over 20 years with the aim of testing and identifying innovative and replicable approaches to improving the quality of basic education.
Thus, in collaboration with key partners, mainly the line departments of education ministries, AKF has designed and implemented through her SIPs different 'school cluster' systems on a pilot basis in Kinondoni Municipality and Morogoro Rural district of Tanzania, in Mombasa Municipality and Samburu Division of Kwale District in the coast province of Kenya, and recently in Kampala City Council and Wakiso District of Uganda, respectively.
Evidence suggests that where the design and implementation are appropriate, higher education officials spend relatively more time with teachers, remotely located schools work less in isolation, there is relatively more collaborative and optimal resource utilization, and teachers are relatively more able to mentor and coach fellow teachers and share feedback with higher education officials.
Such benefits of 'clustering' schools however arise from, among other things, the existence and awareness of country, especially area-specific, bottom-up needs that act as drivers for the school 'clustering' process, the existence of a critical mass of teachers (and other resources) that can be collaboratively utilized, the existence of official recognition of the system and apparent added responsibilities of the key players and the existence of an elaborate participatory work plan of the process of establishing clusters and delivering interventions.