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According to the World Bank, 70 percent of 10-year-olds, mainly from the developing countries, are now in learning poverty with is defined as inability to read and understand a simple story/FILE

EDUCATION

Standardize education to fix learning poverty: Nobel Laureate

Prof Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago and his team of researchers found that a highly standardized education has the potential to deliver huge learning gains.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 28 — Ministers of education, policy and business leaders, and youth activists from over 140 countries are this week meeting in France to deliberate on ways to transform education.

Proceedings at the UNESCO Transforming Education Pre-Summit in Paris will consist of country-led national consultations, global thematic action tracks, and public engagements.

The Pre-Summit will focus on 5 key areas of transformation, including schools, life-long quality learning, teachers, connectivity and financing education.

It will provide an open forum for countries to share key elements of their commitment to transforming education so as to inspire other countries to come forward with bold commitments and actions at the main Summit scheduled for September 2022 in New York, USA.

Coming at a time when education globally is facing enormous challenges, the Summit aims to provide “a moment for education to take its rightful place on the global stage, at the top of the world’s agenda,” and to reverse the current slide on SDG 4.

According to the World Bank, 70 percent of 10-year-olds, mainly from the developing countries, are now in learning poverty with is defined as inability to read and understand a simple story.

“School closures during the pandemic and unequal mitigation actions have exacerbated the learning inequality among children,” says the World Bank.

“Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are affected the most, jeopardizing their ability to thrive in increasingly competitive labour markets and more complex societies.”

As the world battles the looming learning crisis, a recently released study by a Nobel prize winning economist seems to offer a way out.

Prof Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago and his team of researchers found that a highly standardized education has the potential to deliver huge learning gains.

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The study conducted in Kenya by the Nobel Laureate’s team found out that after two years, primary school pupils in Bridge are nearly a whole additional year of learning ahead of children taught using standard methods.

For pre-primary pupils, children gain nearly an additional year and half of learning.

They learn in two years what children in other schools learn in three and a half years.

The researchers also found that Grade 1 pupils in Bridge were more than three times as likely to be able to read as their peers in other schools.

In addition, they found that pupils starting from the lowest learning levels gained the most, with girls making the same leap in learning as boys.

These findings are an affirmation of the scientific learning and teaching methods used by Bridge since 2009, a model that now underpins public education transformation programmes supporting more than a million children a day across Africa.

In Paris, delegates are going to engage in discussions on how to increase education funding.

With the onset of the pandemic in 2020, government spending on education has decreased globally.

An estimated 40 percent of low- and lower-middle income countries have reduced their spending on education, with an average decline in real spending of 13.5 percent.

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Kenya has been championing global efforts to deliver the resources that are needed to enable millions of children across the world to access quality education.

The country has endorsed the 2021 Call to Action on Domestic financing and actioned its recommendations by dedicating 26 percent of its national budget to the education sector.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has called on other countries to do so while prioritizing the principles of volume, equity and efficiency.

The Pre-Summit will chart the way forward for education transformation, more so in crisis contexts.

In 2021, President Kenyatta and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson co-chaired the Global Partnership for Education Summit held in London.

The two leaders rallied their counterparts to step up efforts to provide transformational education systems to the hundreds of millions of children currently being left behind.

President Kenyatta urged government leaders to continue investing in and prioritising education by enacting supporting policies.

At the same time, he underscored the importance of embracing digital technology and harnessing its full potential to improve and transform education.

The President said that he imagines a world where every child has access to digital technology as a tool to learn; as much as they wish and to experience the world from the comfort of their classroom or their home.

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In Kenya, there are school providers that have been practicing the model that the President has been advocating on the world stage.

The likes of Bridge International Academies have been using technology to provide affordable high-quality education to children from the underserved communities for well over a decade and half.

The results are impeccable, with Bridge pupils outperforming the national average in the KCPE exams for seven consecutive years.

During the pandemic, Kenya was able to establish a blended learning system which enabled many children to stay engaged in their schooling.

Bridge Kenya developed an innovative remote learning resource called Bridge@home which allowed children to continue learning while schools were closed, focusing on WhatsApp and virtual classrooms.

The resources reduced learning disruption and kept children on the path to success.

As the Transforming Education Pre-Summit takes place in Paris, a new report by the World Bank, UNESCO, and UNICEF is calling for sustained national political commitment, from the highest political levels to all members of society to tackle the learning crisis.

According to the report, Turning the tide against the longer-term learning crisis will require national coalitions for learning recovery – coalitions that include families, educators, civil society, the business community, and other ministries beyond the education ministry.

Commitment needs to be further translated into concrete action at the national and sub-national levels, with better assessment of learning to fill the vast data gaps, clear targets for progress, and evidence-based plans for learning recovery and acceleration.

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“This is the moment to reverse the historical slide resulting from pandemic, climate and conflict disruptions, and to seek transformational changes around schooling, learning, teaching, technology, and financing of education,” says UNESCO.

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