EDUCATION | PRELIMINARY RESULTS BRIEF The Impacts of Teacher Training and Parental Awareness on Kindergarten Quality in Ghana Enrollment in early childhood education has increased dramatically in Ghana, but the education sector now faces the challenge of ensuring young children learn and develop school readiness skills. This study evaluated the impacts of a scalable, in-service training and coaching program for kindergarten teachers, with and without parental awareness meetings, on teaching practices and children’s learning and development. Key Findings* »» The in-service teacher training and coaching improved teachers’ use of the play-based kindergarten-specific pedagogy that is specified in Ghana’s national early childhood education curriculum. These positive effects persisted one year later, after the program ended. »» The teacher-training and coaching improved children’s school readiness, including their early literacy, early numeracy, and social-emotional skills in the first year. One year later, when children moved to their next year of schooling, the impacts on social-emotional development persisted. »» The parental awareness meetings were not effective in engaging parents in their child’s education, and alternative approaches to engage parents need to be explored. »» Overall, the results of the in-service teacher training hold promise for improving the quality of education delivered in Ghana’s kindergarten educational system. * These results are preliminary and may change after further data collection and/or analysis. RESEARCHERS COUNTRY Sharon Wolf (University of Pennsylvania) Ghana J. Lawrence Aber (New York University) TIMELINE Jere Behrman (University of Pennsylvania) 2015-2017 PARTNERS SAMPLE Ghana Education Service 240 schools; 444 kindergarten teachers; 3,800 parent-child pairs National Nursery Teacher Training Center The Challenge Early childhood years represent a crucial window for the country’s universal basic education, and Ghana now development, as it is during these early years that has one of the highest enrollment rates for preprimary children form the basis for future learning. education in the region. However, the quality of preprimary education in Ghana is low. A large share of kindergarten There is growing evidence that investments in early teachers is untrained, and many only have a primary childhood have high returns, and that missed opportunities education. With high enrollment rates across the country, to promote early childhood development can lead to lasting equipping teachers with skills and training has the potential deficits in children’s educational attainment and future to improve the quality of early childhood education, wellbeing. leading to large-scale improvements in child learning and In 2007, the Government of Ghana expanded two years development. of preprimary (“kindergarten”) education to be included in The Program The Quality Preschool for Ghana (QP4G)1 program five-day course in its center. In addition, trained coaches/ was designed to build capacity and support for monitors were education coordinators from the district the implementation of the 2004 kindergarten (KG) government who visited teachers in their classrooms each curriculum and to enhance the quality of early term. As such, the program was designed to be scalable childhood education (ECE). with national and district government support. The goal of the project was to develop and evaluate an Parental awareness meetings: Because the KG curriculum affordable and scalable model of teacher training to is different from what many parents are used to (i.e., it provide high-quality ECE services to children. It also tested is play-based as opposed to teacher-driven), parental the added benefits of engaging parents via educational awareness meetings were held in order to align parental awareness meetings. expectations with the practices promoted in the teacher training. The program consisted of three educational In-service teacher training and coaching program: sessions (one per term) held during Parent Teacher The in-service kindergarten teacher training program was Association meetings. District coordinators screened delivered to kindergarten teachers and head teachers by informational videos and afterwards led discussions on the National Nursery Teacher Training Center (NNTTC). play-based learning and parents’ role in children’s learning. The training began with a five-day course, followed by a They also encouraged parent-teacher and parent-school two-day refresher training four months later, and a one-day communication. refresher four months after that. The program offered experiential training for teachers, and included ongoing The NNTTC was a key partner in the development and monitoring and support. The training focused on helping implementation of the teacher training program, and teachers provide age-appropriate/play-based instructional Sabre Charitable Trust helped develop the curriculum. techniques and an encouraging, positive classroom Additionally, a QP4G Steering Committee, which included environment. representatives from Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education, provided important feedback and The training was built into existing education structures: guidance throughout the development of the program. the teacher trainers and training center, NNTTC, offered the The Evaluation Researchers evaluated the impact of the in-service both teacher and parental awareness programs, or neither kindergarten teacher training and coaching program, (comparison group). with and without a parental awareness component, on In addition, at each school, researchers randomly chose 15 teachers’ professional well-being, classroom quality, kindergarten students from the class roster and measured and child learning outcomes. their school readiness skills, including early academic, The research took place in six districts of the Greater Accra social-emotional, and executive function skills. Students Region, across public and private schools serving children were assessed during implementation year and one year enrolled in kindergarten, approximately aged 4-6 years. later, to assess if program impacts on child outcomes were sustained as the younger cohort of children attended Researchers randomly assigned 240 public and private their second year of kindergarten, and the older cohort of schools to either receive the teacher training and coaching, children entered primary school. 1 Preschool in this study refers to the two years of pre-primary education in Ghana called kindergarten, or KG. The Impacts Of Teacher Training and Parental Education Innovations for Poverty Action | 2 on Kindergarten Quality in Ghana Results Note: These results are preliminary and may change after further data collection and/or analysis. Overall, the in-service teacher training and coaching program improved teaching, classroom quality, and school readiness during the implementation year, and some impacts persisted into the following school year. The parental awareness component, however, had unintended effects, suggesting alternative approaches are needed to effectively engage parents. Year 1: Impacts on teachers’ instructional quality Year 2: Impacts on teachers’ instructional quality * p < .05. * p < .05. SHORT-TERM IMPACTS, DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION YEAR (AT LEFT): »» In the year the interventions were implemented, »» In addition, the in-service teacher training and the in-service teacher training and coaching coaching led to a small improvement in children’s program significantly improved classroom school readiness, including literacy, numeracy, and quality, with moderate impacts on the social-emotional skills. implementation of developmentally appropriate »» Adding the parental-awareness intervention practices, and on some dimensions of quality to the teacher training did not enhance these teacher-child interactions. effects, and in fact counteracted the impacts »» The programs also led to moderate impacts on on child outcomes. Researchers did not conclude teachers’ professional well-being, reducing teacher that parental awareness meetings are necessarily burnout for all teachers, and teacher turnover in harmful to children. But rather, such interventions the private sector. Specifically, the training reduced must be done carefully and administered by the the probability that a teacher would leave the right personnel in ways that successfully convey kindergarten classroom by the third term from 44 to parents the advantages of novel approaches to percent to 12 percent (teacher training condition) early childhood education. More research would and 17 percent (teacher training and parent be needed to learn the best approaches in the awareness). Notably, in private schools the program Ghanaian context. reduced turnover to levels similar to the public sector. LONGER-RUN IMPACTS, ONE YEAR AFTER PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION ENDED (AT RIGHT): »» Teachers were still using more developmentally »» Impacts on support for student expression (one appropriate practices and reported lower levels dimension of classroom quality) were lower in of burnout than comparison group teachers. both program groups than in the comparison »» Impacts on children’s school readiness persisted, group. This puzzling finding will require further primarily for social-emotional skills. analysis to determine if teachers in particular types »» Impacts on other outcomes, such as classroom of school environments were more or less likely to quality, faded out after support was removed. reduce their support for student expression after the training and district support ended. The Impacts Of Teacher Training and Parental Education Innovations for Poverty Action | 3 on Kindergarten Quality in Ghana Impacts on Child Outcomes2 * p < .05. 2 No impacts of teacher training plus parental awareness either year. Those outcomes are not shown in this graph. COST-EFFECTIVENESS: »» The teacher training and coaching program »» Overall, the program would be more cost- was designed to be affordable and scalable. effective in increasing school readiness and the The average total costs per school, teacher, and implementation of KG-specific pedagogy than any child were approximately $842, $402, and $16. other program with a cost-effectiveness ratio (CER) When considering budgetary expenditures only of a one standard-deviation improvement of more (excluding resource and time costs of participants), than $107.23 per child and $744.63 per teacher, expenditures per school, teacher, and child were respectively, per year.3 $512.35, $244,77, and $9.79, respectively. 3 Estimates based on midline results (impacts at the end of implementation year). Conclusion The findings suggest that the QP4G teacher training Because the program was implemented and evaluated and coaching program is an effective and potentially in urban and peri-urban areas, researchers conclude this scalable way to train teachers on the KG-specific approach is effective and feasible in those areas. The next pedagogy specified in the national curriculum. step is to test what adaptations are needed for the program to be effective and feasible in rural areas of the country. While the effects of many ECE programs fade over time, impacts on teachers’ use of developmentally appropriate The findings also suggest that the parental awareness pedagogy and aspects of children’s school readiness were meetings as implemented were not an effective way to sustained one year after program implementation ended, involve parents in their child’s education, and alternative making the program stand out from similar interventions. approaches to engage parents need to be explored. Researchers believe the on-going support and coaching Overall, the results hold promise for improving was critical to the program’s success. Offering teachers the quality of education delivered in Ghana’s KG additional continued support, such as refresher trainings educational system. The research team supports scaling and coaching, has the potential to mitigate the fade out of the program in urban and peri-urban areas of Ghana, some effects, such as teacher turnover. while adapting and testing it in rural areas. This project is funded by UBS Optimus Foundation (http://www.ubs.com/optimus), the World Bank Early Learning Partnership, and The Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF). Writer: Laura Burke | Designer: John Branch Project Development: pd@poverty-action.org | General Inquiries: contact@poverty-action.org | www.poverty-action.org Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a research and policy nonprofit that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems. 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