UNESCO, its International Institute for Capacity Building (IICBA) in Africa and the Teacher Task Force (TTF), are organizing a series of seminars in 2021 for national policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders in Africa to increase their knowledge and capacity in relation to the teacher policy development process, the dimensions of teacher policy and how policy development work can be better operationalized at the national level. This is a critical area needing attention to ensure that the development of holistic and comprehensive teacher policies is aligned to national frameworks and education sector plans that define teachers’ roles, rights and determine their work.
During the meeting, two key resources will be discussed: the Teacher Policy Development Guide (TPDG) and IICBA’s regionally contextualized guide Teaching Policies and Learning Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa: Issues and Options. Based on inputs from the first virtual session, follow-up workshop(s) will be planned between September and December 2021 on specific topics of teacher policy development.
The workshop will be held in English, French and Arabic with simultaneous interpretation. It will also include language specific working groups to discuss issues related to teacher policy development in greater depth.
For more information please see the Concept Note.
To participate in the event, please register here.
Event post featured photo: UNESCO-IICBA
Despite the recent expansion of access to early childhood education (ECE) in every region of the world, quality of ECE remains extremely low, especially in LMICs. Thus, the continued scaling up of ECE globally presents both an opportunity and challenge in ensuring children are reaping the benefits and the promise of the early years.
The quality of teacher-child interactions in the classroom – otherwise known as process quality – is a critical aspect of ECE quality. The biggest bottleneck to improving process quality is the low capacity of the ECE workforce. Entry and training requirements for ECE teachers are often the lowest in education systems, opportunities for training are very limited, and ECE teachers receive little support to implement developmentally-appropriate pedagogical practices in the classroom. Measuring what currently occurs in the ECE classroom is an important first step towards better supporting ECE teachers.
The BBL will discuss the centrality of the ECE workforce in efforts to ensure access to ECE is scaled with an accompanying focus on quality. There will be an emphasis on the value of collecting data on teaching practices to drive policy dialogue in this area and inform interventions focused on improving professional development opportunities for ECE teachers. It will include a presentation on the World Bank’s new Teach ECE tool, a classroom observation tool aimed at measuring the quality of teacher-child interactions in ECE settings. The presentation will cover what the tool captures, available resources to support implementation, and initial data from pilot applications. The panel discussion will focus on best practices around measuring and supporting effective teaching in the ECE classroom, drawing on perspectives from the field, research, and policy.
Gender biases and stereotypes are continuously impeding girls and women to unleash their full potentials in development processes for the befit of themselves and their community at large. In education, lack of quality and relevant curriculum including gender biased teaching and learning methods, together with absence of safe learning environments are among the critical factors hindering girls from thriving to self-reliance and empowerment through education. In most African countries, these challenges are outstanding requiring concerted efforts by all stakeholders. Though there are recent developments in education systems in terms of improved gender party particularly at primary level through policy actions, there is an un met need by education professionals, including teachers to improve knowledge and skills of gender mainstreaming in day today practices of education provision, with the aim of ensuring continued and sustainable improvements on education outcomes of girls.
In support of national efforts in Africa, the UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), has been providing targeted technical support for member states to improve institutional capacities on gender mainstreaming in education and teacher training. Recently, partnering with UNESCO-HNA project, IICBA has developed a publication entitled: Gender-responsive Education Toolkit for Teachers, Teacher Educators, School Managers and Curriculum Developers in Africa, to support efforts by education institutions in the continent.
This webinar introduces the toolkit to participants with presentations on content and main functions of the toolkit, including discussion on how end users are supposed to utilize the toolkit for intend education purposes. The toolkit addresses target SDG 4.5, aiming to eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable. It also supports the implementation of the AU strategy on gender equality and women’s empowerment 2018 -2028, which sets forth a plan to realize Aspiration 6 of the African Union’s Agenda 2063: “An Africa where development is people driven, relying upon the potential offered by people, especially its women and youth and caring for children.”
The main objective of this webinar is to support promotion of gender equality in education systems through the use of gender mainstreaming tools. Specific objectives include:
The expected outcomes of the webinar are:
The Webinar is open to all education stakeholders including school leaders, teachers, teacher educators, partners in education, and education authorities at diverse levels in Africa and beyond that are interested and engaged in girls’ education.
Join the webinar here.
Photo credit: Doug Linstedt/Unsplash
Through the work of the collaboratives on Teachers in Crisis Contexts (TiCC) and Psychosocial Support and Social and Emotional Learning (PSS-SEL), INEE has made significant contributions to support teachers in emergencies, including the Landscape Review: Teacher Well-being in Low Resource, Crisis, and Conflict-affected Settings (2019).
The urgent need now is to build on this work by identifying and mapping existing teaching and learning resources and measurement tools that focus on teacher wellbeing in emergency contexts.
Call for resources
Please let us know if you have any teaching and learning resources or measurement tools. This could be training manuals, self-help videos, online courses, podcasts, or any other multimedia resource to support the wellbeing of teachers in emergencies. This also includes any measurement tools that you may use to assess teacher wellbeing. Please also forward this email to friends and colleagues in your network who you think may have ideas or resources to share.
Please share any resources or tools, questions or ideas no later than Monday, 1 March for inclusion in the mapping. All materials should be sent to Sophia D’Angelo at sophia.dangelo@inee.org.
Dissemination of the mapping
Our goal is to compile and rapidly disseminate these resources and tools so that EiE practitioners can use them now in order to respond to the multiple crises worldwide, including but not limited to those which have emerged as a result of the global health crisis. We are still determining modes of dissemination and look forward to sharing additional details once the mapping is completed. If you do want to include your resource in the mapping but would prefer them not shared publicly, this is also welcome and we’ll be happy to work with you to make that possible. Please do specify if this is the case.
Finally, in the upcoming weeks we will be looking to connect directly with teachers via questionnaire. If you can support this process or know of teachers who would like to get involved, we encourage you to get in touch. Again, please email Sophia D’Angelo at sophia.dangelo@inee.org.
Your questions, ideas, resources, or tools are all warmly welcome. We look forward to hearing from you.