from EVIDENCE to POLICY Learning what works for better programs and policies November 2018 GHANA: Can training change preprimary teachers’ practices & improve children’s skills? EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT To ensure that children arrive in primary school ready to learn, With support from the World Bank’s Strategic Impact policymakers around the world are increasingly focusing on what Evaluation Fund (SIEF), a randomized control trial measured happens in preprimary education programs and whether chil- the impact of the teacher training on its own and of twinning dren are developing the skills needed for primary school. But it with an educational component for parents to inform them properly structuring preprimary programs and ensuring teachers about what’s developmentally appropriate in preprimary are prepared requires the right training and curricula develop- education. After one year, classroom quality increased and ment. In some cases, it there was a drop in teachers’ feelings of being burned out. But also may be necessary to only teacher training, on its own, decreased teacher turnover help parents understand and improved children’s school readiness skills; adding the how preprimary pro- parental awareness intervention counteracted these positive grams, such as preschools, effects. A year later, teachers in both groups still were can best improve learning implementing some of what they learned in the classroom, in a developmentally ap- and children in the group that only received teacher training propriate way. still had higher social-emotional skills, one of the school This is the challenge readiness skills measured, than the control group. Ghana’s in Ghana, where preprimary programs focus on reading, writing, National Nursery Teacher Training Center, which worked rote memorization, homework, and teachers and sometimes with researchers on the evaluation and is the main teacher use physically and verbally harsh discipline. Most teachers in training center in Accra, now offers training for teachers using preprimary programs in Ghana have little or no training, and the new curriculum. However, children whose parents were parents expect their young children to get homework rather illiterate and who received the educational awareness program than learn through play and activities. To test how to successfully actually scored lower than the other children in all school restructure early education in private and government programs, readiness skills after two years. Researchers are now following researchers worked with government and other partners on a all the children as they progress to primary school to test longer- training program to encourage teachers to use a play-based, child- term impacts, while adjusting the parental awareness program centered curriculum and create a positive classroom environment. to see if they can improve it. Context A growing body of evidence points to the importance of invest- one survey found that only about half of preprimary teach- ing in early education to ensure that children acquire important ers had formal training, and a large share had only a primary learning skills before a crucial development window closes. In education. Additionally, the curriculum in both the public and 2007, the Government of Ghana expanded two years of prepri- private school systems is often developmentally inappropri- mary education, which combines preschool and kindergarten, ate. Teacher-directed instruction often focuses on writing and to be covered under the country’s universal basic education. As memorization. Harsh discipline isn’t uncommon. a result, about 75 percent of children aged four and five are en- In 2012, the Government of Ghana wrote an implemen- rolled in a preprimary program, one of the highest rates in the tation plan for the two years of preprimary education prior to region. Nevertheless, quality remains low. Prior to the study, primary school, which adopted a phased approach to changing the style of instruction in preprimary classrooms. Training the cost was $842 per school, or $404 per teacher trained, or teachers in the curriculum and pedagogy was outlined as a $16 per child in the preprimary school. priority, but the plan had not been implemented effectively, Some schools also received a parental awareness component so in part because of a lack of teacher training programs that that parents could better understand the child-based curriculum. were scalable and affordable. The Quality Preschool for Gha- Because parents in Ghana are used to preprimary programs that na project, known as QP4G, sought to provide an affordable assign homework and exclusively teach reading and mathemat- training program for teachers. It consisted of a five-day course ics, the researchers included informational sessions to reduce the at the start of the school year, followed by two refresher ses- possibility that parents might oppose the changes and push teach- sions—two days at the start of the second term and one day ers to operate as usual. The parental campaign consisted of three EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT at the start of the third term, for a total of eight days of train- meetings—one per term—in which district coordinators screened ing. The program was developed with and delivered by the a short film on the importance of play-based learning, parents’ role National Nursery Teacher Training Center, the primary train- in children’s learning, and parent-teacher and parent-school com- ing center that certifies early education centers. The training munication. The videos were followed by group discussions. program focused on age-appropriate educational techniques, A steering committee, which included representatives from play-based learning, and encouraging a positive classroom en- the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education, vironment. Teachers also were provided with ongoing moni- provided feedback and guidance throughout the development toring and support from district education officers. Overall, of the program. Evaluation A randomized control trial was used to determine the programs’ Data were collected through classroom observations, child effects on teacher practice and children’s school readiness. assessments, in-person interviews with teachers, and phone Researchers, who were working in the poorest districts of interviews with parents and caregivers. Baseline data were the Greater Accra region, randomly assigned 240 public and collected beginning in September 2015 before the programs private schools with preprimary programs for children ages began, midline data in June 2016 at the end of the first school four to six to one of three groups. The first group of 82 schools year when the programs were implemented, and endline data in received only the teacher training component. The second June 2017 in the following academic year when the interventions group, which consisted of 79 schools, received both the teacher were not implemented. This is one of the first studies in Sub- training and the parental awareness meetings, while the third Saharan Africa to assess the impacts of preprimary school teacher group of 79 schools served as a control group and received training on classroom quality and school readiness, including neither intervention. social-emotional and executive function outcomes. Results After one year, the teacher training program compared to the 3.1 activities in the control group. Teachers significantly improved teaching practices, making did better at providing emotional support and behavior them more child-centered. management, but it was only teachers in the group without the parental component that showed improved support for student Using a checklist of 15 classroom practices that were promoted expression. In neither group did teachers show an improvement during the training, researchers found that teachers in both in use of techniques to facilitate deeper learning—for example, treatment groups—training with and without the corresponding the use of scaffolding, which is building on children’s knowledge program for parents—implemented 4.7 to 4.8 activities, as to take them to the next step of understanding. This policy note is based on “Developing and Testing Supply- and Demand-Side Interventions to Improve Kindergarten Educational Quality in Ghana,” Sharon Wolf, Edward Tsinigo, Jere R. Behrman, J. Lawrence Aber, Aix Bonarget, SIEF endline report, December 2017. The program also improved teachers’ professional is that the videos screened to parents seemed irrelevant—and well-being. as a result, caused caregivers to distance themselves from the school. Researchers concluded that awareness campaigns have Whether combined with the parental awareness program the potential to be an important tool but that they need to be or not, teacher training reduced burnout, as measured by the executed carefully and accurately to convey the advantages of a Maslach Burnout Inventory, but didn’t have an impact on child-centered pedagogy, particularly in a context where more teachers’ reported motivation or job satisfaction. However, on traditional learning methods are more familiar to parents. its own, teacher training also had a big impact on reducing teacher turnover—the probability that a teacher would leave his After two years, many improvements observed at the or her position by the last term of the year—to 26.8 percent end of the first year had faded out or even reversed. from 44.3 percent, a more than 40-percent drop. This effect was concentrated among private school teachers and effectively Teachers still employed some of the practices they learned dur- closed the gap in turnover observed in the control group between ing the training, but teachers in both groups were significantly private and public schools. less likely to support student expression compared to teachers in the control group, in contrast to the midline improvement On its own, the teacher training also significantly in this dimension of teaching practices. Teachers in the group improved children’s school readiness. Children in classrooms where teachers had received the train- ing showed improved early numeracy, early literacy, and social- emotional development. This is noteworthy because the train- ing didn’t increase teacher practices that should facilitate deeper learning, like scaffolding, but rather improved teacher practices related to providing emotional support and support for student expression. Adding a parental awareness component, however, was not effective and might have had negative effects on children’s skills. There were no impacts on children’s school readiness when the parental awareness component was added to the training program. In fact, compared to the group whose teachers re- ceived only the training, children whose parents also received that received both the teacher training and the parental aware- the awareness program showed marginally statistically lower ness program still showed lower levels of burnout compared to scores on overall school readiness and significantly lower early control teachers. Teacher turnover didn’t continue to drop after numeracy scores. This suggests that the positive impacts of the the first year, when the programs had ended. training component on children’s school readiness were coun- After two years, there were only marginally statistically teracted by the parental awareness program. significant impacts on children’s overall school readiness in the While this finding doesn’t indicate that involving par- group whose teachers had received training the year before, ents is harmful for children, this particular approach didn’t with only persistent statistically significant impacts on social- successfully engage parents, and the researchers are trying to emotional development. Children whose parents also received understand the program’s negative effects. One possibility is the awareness classes had statistically lower scores on overall that parents disagreed with the program’s emphasis on play- school readiness at endline compared with children in the based learning and tried to counter the teacher’s messages with group that received only the teacher training, but this was more structured learning at home that was counter-productive. concentrated among children with illiterate parents. It’s unclear Some teachers, in fact, told researchers that parents who re- what would have happened had the teachers and parents ceived the awareness campaign complained more about their continued to receive the training in the second year since the child’s behavior and academic problems. Another possibility program only lasted one year. Conclusion As policymakers around the country look to prepare their Nevertheless, more work needs to be done to determine youngest citizens for success, this training program could the best way to engage parents so that they can be full be one approach considered to help teachers effectively partners in their children’s education. The research team is support child development and learning. The results show working closely with the government, public sector partners, it’s possible to use in-service teacher training to change the and donors, as well as the rapidly expanding private school EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT style of instruction in preprimary classrooms and make it network, on ways to incorporate these findings—and lessons more child-centered, benefitting children’s school readiness learned—to improve the quality of preprimary education in for primary school. The results are particularly promising Ghana. Looking forward, researchers are looking to test the because the Quality Preschool for Ghana training was built program in rural areas, to see whether the model—which into existing structures: The National Nursery Teacher was tested in urban and semi-urban areas only—would Training Center offered the course at their center, and its be applicable to other parts of the country. They also plan coaches and monitors who visited the teachers in their an additional round of data collection to follow children classrooms were education coordinators from the district into primary school and examine the program’s long-term government. impacts. The Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund, part of the World Bank Group, supports and disseminates research evaluating the impact of development projects to help alleviate poverty. The goal is to collect and build empirical evidence that can help governments and development organizations design and implement the most appropriate and effective policies for better educational, health, and job opportunities for people in low- and middle-income countries. For more information about who we are and what we do, go to: http://www.worldbank.org/sief. The Evidence to Policy note series is produced by SIEF with generous support from the British government’s Department for International Development. THE WORLD BANK, STRATEGIC IMPACT EVALUATION FUND 1818 H STREET, NW WASHINGTON, DC 20433 Series editor: Aliza Marcus; Writer: Daphna Berman