Teacher Preparation in Africa: Learning to teach early reading
and mathematics
Kwame Akyeampong, John Pryor, Jo Westbrook, Kattie Lussier
Centre for International Education, University of Sussex.
Research Highlights
In the last ten years statistics on access to primary education in African countries have been impressive, with
countries such as Tanzania and Uganda reporting net enrolment rates approaching 100%. However alongside
these reports are other studies that show that once in school, many children are failing to learn (CONFEMEN
2010; SACMEQ 2010). This is particularly disturbing as far
as reading and mathematics in the early grades are
concerned since these are the core competences on which
progress in later grades is based. Nine out of ten children
tested by the Early Grade Reading Assessment in Mali were
found to be unable to read a single word after two years of
school (Gove and Cvelich, 2011) and even in Kenya where
the results were relatively better, few children reached a
fluency benchmark required for comprehension of a text.
The headline answer to the question posed by the Uwezo
assessments in East Africa, ‘Are Our Children Learning?’, is that a majority are not learning (Uwezo 2010). The
link between low pupil achievement and the skills and competence of teachers is consistently made (UNESCO
2005). Children do not succeed unless teachers know how to organize and structure classroom activities that
enable them to learn. Countries invest heavily in initial teacher education but little research has been done to
assess whether it is producing teachers with the knowledge and skills to address the low achievement or
whether initial teacher education is only compounding the problem. Ghana, for example, spends about 6% of its
education budget on teacher education with this projected to rise as demand for teachers increases to meet
expanded enrolment in basic schools. Coupled with the fact that the public cost for training a teacher is about
forty-five times more than a primary school place, teacher education in a country like Ghana represents a
significant public investment (Lewin & Stuart 2003).
The Teacher Preparation in Africa (TPA) project1 funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
researched teacher education in Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda. The research identified
the weaknesses in initial training but also found constructive ways in which it can address the crisis of low
achievement in reading and math. Using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research in the form of a
questionnaire, video observations and interviews, it investigated the way that trainee teachers (n =4699) were
being taught to teach basic mathematics and reading to early grade children. Using similar methods it then
researched the classroom practices of newly qualified teachers (n = 1079), defined as those teachers who had
undergone training in the previous three years. In this way the research was able to make connections between
the initial training that teachers are currently receiving and the way this training is used with children in early
grades classrooms. The results of the research in each country were distinctive and are contained in full
country reports (see http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cie/projectscompleted/tpa). This document however
highlights eight common points across the six countries and gives seven recommendations for improving initial
teacher education.
1. Initial Teacher Education counts: it has the strongest impact on Newly Qualified
Teachers practice.
TPA research demonstrates that of the influences on new teachers’ practice, the most significant is what is
learnt at pre-service training college. In the questionnaire for both reading and mathematics in all countries
apart from Senegal, the training college was overwhelmingly the most popular choice of where they gained their
best understanding of teaching (see Figure 1).
1
The project is known as Formation Initiale et Continue des Enseignants en Afrique (FICEA) in French.
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This impact was confirmed in interviews with teachers following observed lessons. Even in Senegal where
training is short and where all of the sample schools were engaged in continuing professional development
involving discussion with colleagues, the training college was the clear and popular choice for reading and
equal first choice for math. In the other countries, continuing professional development was seen as less
significant and under a quarter (23%) of those surveyed had attended any courses.
Figure 1: Where new teachers claim they developed their best understanding of teaching reading (left) and
math (right)
100
100
80
80
60
60
Work in Schools
40
40
Other teachers
20
20
0
0
In-service training
Training College
2. Training to teach reading and basic mathematics is focused on content not methods
Despite the amount of time devoted to initial training, very little is actually focused specifically on learning how
to teach reading and mathematics. In all the residential college-based courses, a disproportionate amount of
instructional time is allocated to subject knowledge, often repeating the secondary school curriculum in an
attempt to improve the subject knowledge base of trainee teachers. This leaves very little time for developing
skills of teaching reading and basic mathematics which are taught just before the practicum takes place. In
Ghana, for example, only one out of four semesters is used for teaching methods and in Mali only one term is
devoted for this. Within this, mathematics is at least seen as a separate subject, but reading is considered only
a part of the language curriculum, and therefore has to take its place alongside other topics. Indeed in Senegal
and Tanzania teaching reading does not even merit a topic on its own, being counted in with writing (see Table
1).
Table 1: Reading topics and language in the initial teacher education curriculum
Kenya
Senegal
Mali
Tanzania
Uganda
Ghana
Number of language topics
7
6
8
5
16
14
Number of reading topics
1
0.5
1
0.5 + 0.5 =1
3
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In all the colleges, tutors could therefore only give a basic introduction to the teaching of early reading despite
its acknowledged importance to learning globally in primary education. In the case of basic mathematics in Mali,
there is little detail in the initial teacher education syllabus for learning to teach mathematics and little guidance
for tutors on how to use the 20 hours allocated to it in the colleges and 44 hours in the accelerated program.
Teaching in all the colleges is organized predominantly through lectures and in large groups which may enable
the transmission of content but prohibit a focus on active learning of teaching methods. Although the situation
varies from country to country, a conclusion of our research is that in every case there is a discrepancy
between what is required of teachers to teach the primary school curriculum and the preparation that they
receive to do this from their initial training. Despite the different lengths of training and group size, new teachers’
teaching was similar, suggesting that what countries do in terms of training to teach reading and basic
mathematics for the lower grades requires the most attention from initial teacher education in order to improve
children’s learning.
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3. Training induces misplaced confidence
The challenge of initial teacher education is to produce teachers who do not replicate the practices that lead to
low pupil achievement. A striking finding of the research is that the overwhelming majority of trainee teachers
were optimistic about their teaching ability. Across the six countries an average of 93% in reading and 91% in
mathematics rated their ability to teach children in the early grades as high or very high. What is more, in all the
countries except Senegal, after one to three years of teaching newly qualified teachers were still very confident
about their ability to teach (see Table 2). Interviews confirmed that their confidence derived mainly from their
training where they felt they had learnt procedures that would enable them to deliver effective lessons as this
typical quotation shows: “I am now able to go to class and teach properly … now I know the procedure” (Kenya
Trainee Teacher).
Table 2: Percentage of respondents rating their ability to teach early grade pupils as high or very high
Country
Trainees
Ghana
Kenya
Mali
Senegal
Tanzania
Uganda
93
87
92
96
97
91
New teachers
Reading Teachers
92
95
83
55
94
86
Trainees
New Teachers
Mathematics
92
90
83
94
96
94
95
99
75
66
97
90
This confidence is linked directly to lessons observed in the colleges, where tutors prescribed a fixed sequence
for teaching reading or mathematics. The steps varied between countries and colleges: in mathematics for
example in Mali and Senegal lessons had to begin with a mental arithmetic problem, but everywhere there was
a single ‘correct approach’, focusing on a prescribed set of teacher actions but not enough about dealing with
children’s understanding and processes of learning. Simulations were often used, but with trainee teachers in
the role of children they were not prepared for the responses of real children. Learning to teach was not
presented as a process in which teachers developed skills in helping pupils make the transition from the early
stages of learning to read or do basic mathematics to the levels required by the end of lower primary.
The research conducted in schools confirmed that the confidence expressed by new teachers was not justified.
Many lessons were observed where there was little participation or understanding by pupils. Teachers rarely
used strategies to check and build understanding so that pupils’ progress could be tracked. When questioned
about why some children seemed not to understand the lesson, many teachers were quick to ascribe this to
lack of resources or children’s lack of ability “They cannot read ...They are very slow learners” (New teacher,
Ghana). In interviews many new teachers explained that a good lesson was one in which teachers
demonstrated the ability to apply a teaching method or sequence that had been acquired in college. Few judged
this on the basis of whether children had developed appropriate understanding of the skill or demonstrated
progress with their learning. The reliance on a formula for teaching may give teachers confidence about their
ability, but what the research found crucially lacking was a focus on the challenges that children typically faced
in learning to read or do basic mathematics and how they might be helped to improve their reading and math
skills.
4. Teaching practice does not deliver the practical skills needed
The practicum in primary schools which all courses incorporate is intended to enable trainee teachers to learn
the practical aspects of teaching but the research found that the opportunities this provided were not being
realized. Evidence from interviews and focus groups demonstrated that trainees experienced the practicum as
short in comparison to the overall length of the training, superficial and separate from both the contents and
method part of the training, a one-off event rather than an accumulation of learning to teach over many lessons.
Only in Kenya and Senegal was it specified that trainee teachers had to teach the lowest three grades as part
of their practicum. Even so, the logistics of the practice meant that many Senegalese trainees said that they
were not able to gain the breadth of curriculum and grades that they were promised. In Tanzania there was a
tendency for schools not to allow trainee teachers to work with grades 1 and 2 at all: “We have the ability to
teach mathematics grade 1 and 2: the problem is that during teaching practice we are not accepted to teach in
these grades” (Tanzania Trainee Focus group). Ugandan trainees reported that teaching opportunities were
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limited because of large numbers of trainees in one school and they often did not even observe a lower grade
reading lesson.
Trainee teachers may be visited once or twice during their practicum by college staff but often this can be
jeopardized through lack of funds or distance from the college. In no country did tutors draw on the practicum
as a learning opportunity back at the college. This was not helped by the structure of the programmes that
place the practicum at the end of the training year followed by a long vacation before the next term (see Table
3). In Mali and Ghana a whole year practicum comes at the end of the course so it is too late for trainees to use
the experience to ground the college work in reality. In Mali tutors do not even visit trainees during this
practicum. Even when time and distance is not a factor, as with the demonstration primary schools attached to
each Tanzanian college, trainees carry out single or double lesson practice only on an infrequent and erratic
basis rather than this being a central mode of their learning.
Table 3: The structure of training
Ghana
Grades
covered
1-9
Length of
College Course
2 years
Kenya
Mali (college)
1-8
1-6
2 years
1 or 3 years
Mali (short)
Senegal
Tanzania
1-6
1-6
1-7 or 11
45 days
6 months
2 years
Uganda
1-7
2 years
Length of Practicum
1 year following college course – no compulsory requirement for all trainees to
experience teaching grades 1-3.
3 weeks with grade 1-3, 3 weeks with grade 4-5, 3 weeks with grade 6-8
3 months at the end of college course then 1 whole year – no requirement to
teach grades 1-3
45 days
3 weeks with grade 1-2, 3 weeks with grade 3-4, 3 weeks with grade 5-6
2 blocks 1-2 months and some single lesson practices – no requirement to
teach grades 1-3
3 blocks of 3-4 weeks – no requirement to teach grades 1-3
5. School curricula are in advance of teacher training curricula and are not studied at
colleges.
In all of the countries much has been invested in reforms of the primary school curriculum and producing
teacher guides. These are competence or ouctome-based curricula, incorporating learner-centered and
material-rich approaches specifying expectations of pupil progress: ‘pupils should be able to read a text silently
within a specified time, with correct pronunciation, stress and intonation and answer simple questions’ (Ghana,
grade 3) is a typical example. However, curriculum change in initial teacher education lags behind. Tutors are
therefore not up to date with what is required and so the approaches and content of initial teacher education are
focused on the past. Even in Ghana where teacher education has been reformed more recently, there was
found to be no consistent study of the school curriculum or access to teacher and pupil materials. New teachers
therefore enter classrooms with limited knowledge of the pedagogical approaches appropriate for the primary
school curriculum that is in use. Nor are they familiar with the expectations for pupil attainment that each
primary curriculum makes explicit.
6. Teachers are not prepared for the language of learning
The policy on language of learning in schools varies in each of the countries. Lower grades in Senegal are
taught in French but in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and Mali the language of learning varies in different schools. Yet
apart from in Tanzania where Kiswahili is used as the medium in both colleges and schools, initial teacher
education did not prepare trainee teachers for multilingual classrooms. In the Francophone countries training
only recognized French and only 8% of new teachers surveyed in Senegal and 2% in Mali expressed any
confidence about teaching reading in local languages, despite the fact that in many of the schools in Mali these
were supposed to be used as the medium for the lower grades. In the other countries there was provision for
teaching in local languages, but still 68% in Uganda, 74% in Kenya and 79% in Ghana expressed confidence in
teaching reading only in English.
7. Teachers do not learn to teach reading for meaning
In all six countries, newly qualified teachers and trainees said they found it most difficult to teach children to
develop skills in reading for meaning and at the level of sentences and texts. However many did not think this
problematic as they believed that teaching children to read with understanding was not relevant for early
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grades, despite the fact that school curricula stress comprehension of a variety of texts from grade 1. Right from
college early reading was conceptualized as just recognition of sounds, letters and words. One quarter of tutors
in Ghana and Uganda thought that comprehension was for upper primary only, even while this is a stated
benchmark for grade 3 in both
countries: “Early readers need to
be trained in systematic reading;
they can start with letters, words,
pictures, then later for upper
classes
stories
could
be
introduced” (Uganda tutor). This
corresponded with our classroom
observations where new teachers
focused on syllables and words
and sentences in consecutive steps but without linking them coherently to achieve fluency and reading with
meaning of short texts. In Mali and Senegal, for example, stages in the formula for teaching reading that
concerned meaning were done perfunctorily or left out. International research on reading makes clear that
comprehension and fluency from the start are key to making progress (NICHHD, 2000). Research by Uwezo in
Kenya and Tanzania and EGRA in Uganda, Senegal and Mali shows that many children progress to higher
primary grades without the ability to read lower grade texts fluently and with meaning. Our data suggest that
teacher education is strongly implicated in this problem, as can be seen in figure 2 which shows that new
teachers in general rank aspects of learning to read that require comprehension and fluency as the most
difficult relative to pre-reading skills and letter sound/symbol associations.
Figure 2: New Teachers average ranking of difficulty in teaching reading skills (1 =easiest)
The way a story is put together
Find meaning from word’s place in sentence
Understanding the overall meaning of story
Read aloud at sufficient speed to make sense
Recognize different parts of a word
Punctuation and capital letters
Link stories, actions and pictures with writing
Join sounds to make syllables
Teaching letter sounds
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
8. Teacher education does not link doing classroom activities to learning concepts in
lower grade mathematics
Across all countries in answering the questionnaire and in interviews trainee teachers showed they understood
from their training the importance of using concrete materials in early grade mathematics lessons. Teaching
and learning materials were much in evidence in classroom observations both in colleges and in new teachers’
classrooms. However, the data from these observations also showed that the connection between the materials
and the mathematical concepts they exemplified were not strongly made. Using teaching and learning materials
was a stage in a lesson which was followed by a rapid move to symbolic representation on the blackboard and
in many lessons it was not clear whether children had truly grasped the point of the concrete materials in the
lesson. The mathematics that new teachers found consistently most difficult to teach was solving simple word
problems: many lacked the ability to engage children in activities which could make solving basic mathematics
meaningful, including story problems involving addition, subtraction and simple division. Figure 3 shows that
new teachers ranked pre-number and basic number ideas as the easiest they could teach compared to other
topics found in the lower primary mathematics curriculum.
Other research suggests that teachers in low-income countries are weak in communicating basic mathematics
concepts to young children (see Uwezo and ASER research). The fact that many trainees and newly qualified
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teachers seemed confident in their ability to teach basic numeracy and yet children continue to have difficulties
means teacher education is failing many children in African schools.
Figure 2: New Teachers average ranking of difficulty in teaching mathematics topics (1= easiest)
Solving word problems
Length, Volume and Weight
Comparing fractions
Subtraction of numbers
Division
Adding two or three digit numbers
Multiplication of numbers
Recognising fractions
Place value (tens, units)
The meaning of numbers and counting
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Recommendations
Continued investment in initial teacher education seems warranted as it offers a national program that reaches
a critical mass and is what teachers say informs their practice the most. It has the potential to improve teaching
in schools and provides the foundation on which future teacher learning is based. However, it can only deliver
this effectively by focusing time and resources on those activities which directly support trainees learning to
teach, especially in the key subjects of reading and mathematics for the youngest children. This could be
achieved by revising the initial teacher education curriculum to make the study and experience of actual lower
primary classroom practice far more central to trainees’ work in college. This might include:
1.
curriculum developers designing coherent, intensive programs on how to teach beginning reading using
the full range of strategies for recognizing letters and words and comprehending texts. These programs
can be aligned closely to the primary curriculum and expectations for pupils’ learning so that trainee
teachers can immediately grasp what is needed to get children to read at the expected rate of progression
for each grade.
2.
curriculum developers designing similar intensive programs for mathematics emphasizing concrete
activities as a way of understanding basic mathematical concepts to make sense to children and do basic
mathematics;
3.
working with trainee in smaller groups: large group teaching encourages more generic, teacher-led training
approaches which shift the attention away from learning to diagnose and help children learn skills for
reading and basic mathematics.
4.
retraining tutors to use these programs in recommendations 1 and 2 and giving them greater access to
primary schools, primary teachers and the primary curriculum;
5.
tutors and trainees studying the primary school curriculum, syllabus, teachers’ guides and materials and
looking at examples of children’s work to consider misconceptions, errors and what is required to help
children progress satisfactorily from grade 1 to 3;
6.
critical consideration of children’s knowledge with respect to the language of learning so teachers are
taught how to teach beginning reading in more than one language, how to make and use local language
reading materials and to teach English or French as foreign languages.
7.
rescheduling the practicum for earlier in the training year with all trainees required to experience lower
grades over a minimum number of weeks; where there are many trainees in one school, trainees can work
with smaller groups of children.
TPA Website: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cie/projectscompleted/tpa
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