Teachers are among the greatest influences in a child’s life. A well-trained teacher can develop a student’s foundational knowledge and soft skills, nurture their curiosity, and encourage their goals. Conversely, a poorly trained teacher can be detrimental to child development and quality education (SDG 4). Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have a severe shortage of trained teachers for their quickly growing education sectors. Many teachers have limited pedagogical abilities and poor material comprehension as well as struggle with overpopulated classrooms. Teachers working in SSA need to receive sufficient and valuable continuous professional development opportunities to improve their skills and abilities.
In May 2021 GPE KIX launched the project Strengthening In-service Teacher Mentorship and Support which involves a teacher support model called School-based In-service Teacher Training (SITT) in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. SITT is a practice-based approach that involves training experienced teachers and college tutors to mentor other secondary school teachers through peer learning exchange, model lessons, and team teaching. The project sought to generate lessons on effective teacher mentorship, to build teachers’ and mentors’ capacity, and to mobilize policy uptake of teacher mentorship to improve overall capacity and learning outcomes. Dar es Salaam University College of Education’s (DUCE) implementation and expansion of the project from May 2021 to November 2023 strengthened teachers’ capacity and materialized in benefits for students, including greater mathematics competencies and gender inclusivity in schools.
SITT was first piloted in Tanzanian elementary schools but was then adapted to secondary school contexts in Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia. Adapting SITT for secondary school teachers required a new approach that acknowledged the different academic challenges adolescents face compared to young children. For example, as students progress through school, they become more likely to develop mathematics anxiety and drop out of math and other STEM courses. This phenomenon can worsen gender inequality by disproportionately affecting female students.
Outcomes
The project team found that inadequate mentorship and support programs for maths teachers; lack of student’s interest in learning maths; low students’ ability in learning; and inadequate teaching and learning resources for maths were the greatest obstacles to high quality math education delivery. DUCE addressed these challenges by offering a Training of Trainers (ToT) course to 21 tutors from teacher colleges and by training to 105 secondary school mathematics teachers. These sessions, coupled with the application of a learner centered approach to teaching maths, led to record numbers of students earning As and Bs on mathematics examinations.
The students’ success in math fostered greater confidence. This confidence then generated a desire to continue learning and to maintain high attendance which in turn reinforced students’ academic progress. This cycle is represented in students’ rising grades at schools across Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia.
In 2021 only 19% of students passed the maths portion of the National Secondary Schools Examination in Tanzania. The Kipok Girls Secondary School, located in Arusha, found that in 2021 prior to the project, no girls received an A or B on the math examination. By contrast, in 2022 two girls earned an A and one girl earned a B. Although these students are only a fraction of the student body, these findings convey progress. Students are incrementally moving from earning Fs to earning Ds and Cs, and can ultimately earn As and Bs owing to their teachers’ increased capacity and delivery of quality math education.
The project team observed academic progress in adolescent girls and boys. Education stakeholders, including Ministry of Education (MoE) officials, participated in strengthening teachers’ approach to gender inclusivity. Initial project findings served as the foundation for an advocacy and communication strategy and a gender and inclusion strategy. The latter strategy raised teachers’ and policymakers’ awareness of gender-related challenges in schools. This evidence inspired immediate change in Kenya, where education stakeholders began encouraging the use of re-usable sanitary towels (Sodo) in schools. One Kenyan school embraced the Sodo as a school project where the girls made Sodo to distribute to urban girls. The provision of sanitary towels can correlate to academic success because it enables adolescent girls to attend school while menstruating and thus have the same opportunity to learn as male students.
One teacher at a Zambian school shared that “it’s not just about teaching, but building a supportive community.” Strengthening In-service Teacher Mentorship and Support fostered relationships among educators, dialogue between teachers and education stakeholders, gender inclusivity, and teacher-student relationships. These inclusive values and relationships enabled teachers to develop the capacity and confidence to best serve their students.
All these outcomes strengthened the project team’s understanding of how to scale the SITT model, thereby contributing to the global knowledge on Teacher Professional Development. The project underscored the importance of effective stakeholder engagement, which involved close collaboration with teacher colleges, local government officials, and education authorities to ensure the model’s successful implementation.
Key Research Outputs
Explore a selection of the reports, case studies, and situation analyses completed by this project:
General:
Policy Brief: Strengthening in-service teacher mentorship and support: Endline Evaluation
Policy Brief: Scaling education innovations: the case of the “school-based in-service teacher training” model
Policy Brief: Stakeholders’ engagement in strengthening in-service teacher mentorship and support project
Kenya:
Policy Brief: Strengthening in-service teacher mentorship and support through school-based in-service teacher training in Kenya
Tanzania:
Policy Brief: Addressing causes of gendered students’ mathematics performance in Tanzanian secondary schools
Zambia:
Policy Brief: Enhancing in-service teacher mentorship and support in Zambia
Policy Brief: Integrating “school in-service teacher mentorship and support” project principles into the national curriculum in Zambia
