Monitoring the Improvement of the Learning Environment of Government Primary School achieved through the UEI-PDP for Teachers
Quality issues, particularly professional development of teachers and administrators, are one of the major reasons that are affecting the education system from moving ahead.
Considering these constraints, the Professional Development Programme (PDP) for Primary School Teachers (PSTs) of Sindh was launched by the United Educational Initiatives (UEI), a consortium of five governmental and non-governmental organizations, working under the supervision of ESRA. Implementation of the UEI-PDP in four districts of Sindh is ensured by a team in each district comprising programme managers, programme associates, monitoring and evaluation officers, accountants and office staff.
Recognising that capacity-building of district education employees would help improve the education system in the country, 130 Master Trainers were selected, on merit, from the District Education Office for training of 17,000 teachers and 3,000 head teachers/administrators over a period of two years.
This paper focuses on a professional development programme that is different from other teacher training programmes in the following ways:
- A consortium with public-private partnership with the aim to promote collaboration using the combined assets of this partnership
- A programme which encompasses intermittent theory and field work over a period of 18 weeks for primary school teachers. The field work is enhanced by ensuring support in schools by school support trainers who mentor and monitor the UEI trained teachers
- Training modules that are prepared by indigenes according to the realities of the local context
- Capacity-building of some private and public educational institutes by developing resource persons, master trainers, school support trainers, monitoring and evaluating team members
- Addressing the need of multigrade teachers in government primary schools.
- Development and utilization of low-cost teaching aids by the participating government school teachers
- Focus on reflective practice and mentoring as a training technique
- A Whole District Initiative to train 17,000 teachers and 3,000 headteachers within two years
A systematic study of the professional development programme is undertaken by the Monitoring and Evaluation Units. Data is collected through pre- and post-observations, interviews, questionnaires and reports. Such tools make it possible for the monitoring teams to observe, to inquire further and, along with the managers, master trainers, field workers and teachers, seek to explain the progress of the programme and take corrective action where indicated. Both formative evaluations as well as summative evaluation techniques are utilized for evaluating the programme.
The course participants (both PST & Head Teachers/Administrators) are assessed by the Master Trainers at each Training Centre during each of the training phases using an assessment criterion. The PSTs are also assessed in the field phases of the training cycle by the School Support Team.
The monitoring and evaluation tools and assessments of teachers reveal that there is some positive change in the attitude and belief patterns of teachers. Additional outcomes that have been observed are that teaches have started planning lessons and use student-centred approaches in their classrooms.
One of the intended outcomes of the programme was to assist in developing and implementing a comprehensive and sustainable professional support system for quality (primary/elementary) education at the district level. This has been achieved to some extent since the inception of the programme a year ago, including the capacity-building of different professionals involved in implementing the UEI Professional Development Programme.
A few lessons learnt are enumerated here:
- Changing the belief patterns and attitude of the teachers in the beginning of the training cycle ensures that teachers are ready to learn new concepts and teaching strategies thereby ensuring the sustainability and implementation of student-centred teaching
- Ownership of the programme by the District Education Office is imperative to ensure the sustainability of the professional development programme
- A total change as envisioned will take more than two years and will require further interventions. However, we are on the path to achieve some of the goals envisioned in 'Education for All by 2015'.