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Anatomy of an educational change

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Ciaran Sugrue provides a critical analysis of a planned change, the Safe Learning Model (SLM), devised over time by Concern Worldwide, and implemented in 100 primary or elementary schools in a rural district of Sierra Leone.

Image courtesy of interviewee. November 29, 2023

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This video video discusses a development initiative in Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, focused on improving literacy and education through a multifaceted approach led by Concern Worldwide, a significant international NGO. The initiative aimed to address various issues such as agricultural production, gender-based violence, and literacy in the context of the country's post-civil war recovery.

Sierra Leone's education system faces challenges, including the prevalence of community schools that lack government recognition, where teachers often depend on community support rather than formal salaries. The government's declaration of free primary education has not fully reached these communities. Many teachers are unqualified and rely on community resources, impacting the quality of education.

A randomized control trial was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention designed to improve literacy in 100 rural schools. While there were modest improvements in literacy levels, significant challenges remained, such as the lack of difference in student performance regardless of teacher qualifications and the failure of the educational system to improve meaningfully.

Key findings highlight the limited effectiveness of the intervention and raise critical concerns about teacher capacity, sustainability, and the potential demoralization of the workforce if support is withdrawn. This video video suggests that ongoing reliance on NGOs for educational support may enable government inaction in addressing systemic issues within teacher education and the broader education system. Overall, it underscores the complexities of implementing successful educational reforms in challenging contexts like Sierra Leone.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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The context, context on the one hand of Sierra Leone,

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which is one of the poorest countries on the planet

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in West Africa, for those who don't know their geography,

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it was funded

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by Concern Worldwide, which is known,

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internationally, a big INGO.

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Uh, they'd had,

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and their commitment is to work

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with the poorest of the poor.

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And, you know, there are other NGOs in the same category.

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Uh, so they were keen

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as most people are in the aid industry,

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even though they may not like that term, are keen

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to identify things that work.

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And for the likes of concern in particular,

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they would, you know, one

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of the great phrases in development work is scaling up.

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Uh, so finding something that works

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and given concerns, involvement in several other

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countries, they were keen to, essentially,

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they put a number of things together.

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They'd had various single initiatives like,

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trying to improve agricultural production,

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reduce gender-based violence, improve literacy levels.

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So the safe learning model became an effort

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to put all these elements together

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in a more multifaceted initiative.

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But of course, what became core

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in many respects, was,

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did the efforts over three, four years,

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literacy levels in schools.

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And of course, that would become an important kinda

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flagship element.

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So if this works in rural Sierra Leone,

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then we can transplant it elsewhere.

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You can't talk about Sierra Leone without mentioning,

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you know, a very bloody conflict of civil war that went on

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for 10 years with massive destruction of schools,

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villages, and so on.

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So after the war ended, there was this, you know,

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as often happens, the international donor community say,

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we're going to get in there

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and we're going to, you know, help you out, as it were.

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And, you know, elements of that happened.

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Uh, but again, the, the hundred schools that we worked with,

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which were for the most part rural schools, some in

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sort of, you know, reasonable sized towns of five,

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10,000 people,

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but you are talking about villages,

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with no electricity, no public transport.

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Uh, one meal a day continues to be the norm.

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Uh, so extreme poverty

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and the education system often,

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well, an important distinction is there are government

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recognized schools, but post the Civil War,

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there are many areas that still have

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what are called community schools.

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They're not recognized by the government.

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Now, here's where it gets complicated.

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You can have a government appointed principal

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in those schools who gets paid,

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but all of the other teachers are

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what are called community teachers who

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dependent on the community, who to

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often pay them in kind with rice, with accommodation,

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or with, you know, small amounts of Leone.

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So even though the government in Sierra Leone

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has since 2018, 19,

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recognized all primary education as free

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for many of these communities, that is not the case.

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So, you know, that's the reality.

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In fact, just

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before we began the conversation, I was thinking about one

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of our postdocs, who did field work

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as I did going into a school one day, was greeted

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by an entire class leaving the school precinct,

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and of course, inquired as to what was going on, only

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to be told that the teacher, a community teacher,

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sent them all home to come back with two cups of rice each

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and 2000 leone.

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We struggled to establish the profi precise figure of

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unqualified or community teachers in the hundred schools we

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worked in, but it certainly was close to 50%

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teenagers who have done, the equivalent

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of junior high school, you know, 15, 16 year olds

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who say, you know, I want to give back to the community.

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When you talk to them, often they don't,

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well, they don't either have had, had the academic results

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or the resources, to go to teacher education colleges.

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So, but they, there's still an incredible kind

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of spirit of community that,

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but also in a sense, tempered by, well,

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maybe if I do this, I will somehow get

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to become a qualified teacher.

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I suppose it's difficult to separate the initiative from

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the research design.

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So at the core of this is a randomized control trial

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around, literacy levels.

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Uh, and so the intervention was introduced.

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Uh, there were sort of coaches, mentors, in,

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in each school, well, you know, between all

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of the schools, all of the schools.

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But, in, in the context of the randomized control trial,

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we introduced or concern introduced

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at staged areas.

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So if you think of four 20 fives, so

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over the period of the study, 25

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of the schools got all of the treatment.

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And so you can see that back along so that we could see

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what the impact of the intervention actually was.

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But not us as a research group were,

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not entirely enamored with the randomized control only.

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So in each of four communities,

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we selected four families

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and did in-depth studies

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with the families in an intergenerational way,

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interviewing grandparents, parents, children.

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And of course, often, you know,

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while family in a western context has become, you know,

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a, a a sort of a, a mess of potage, so to speak,

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in, in, in a West African Sierra Leone context,

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you, you hear kids talking about siblings,

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but in fact their cousins

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or they've been taken in somewhere.

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And that's part of the culture

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and a commitment to community

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that arguably we don't see in the western world anymore.

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Older siblings trying to help out younger siblings.

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The the gender dimension was particularly strong

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because that's an area that NGOs,

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in a sense, talk a great deal about.

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Uh, so,

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and there were interventions in the community so

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that they spoke to the adults, at,

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at community meetings about respect

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and not beating up your wife

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and so on, in, in the expectation that somehow

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extending that into the community would have a positive

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impact in schools.

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Nonetheless, there was a lot of talk, especially from,

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well, it didn't matter whether the teachers were

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qualified or not, but also

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Elders That now that corporal punishment had been made

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Illegal by

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The government, which only happened, you know, in

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or around five,

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Six years ago. I've

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forgotten the actual Date. There

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Was, on the one hand, a kind of a fear of being

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reported and potentially

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Jailed For beating children.

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Nonetheless, when we spoke to the children,

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corporal punishment was

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Sort of widespread In school and in the community.

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And I suppose,

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You know, If you put on your Westerners hat,

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Uh, so to speak, Well, in an Irish context, we

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Abolished Corporal punishment in schools as recently

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as 1982.

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Uh, so It's not long since,

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You know, it was quite acceptable

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In Western context.

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But nonetheless,

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The Struggle then of

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The older Population saying the

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country has gone to hell,

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We've lost Children no longer respect

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Their elders, because

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You've taken away the fear. Now, arguably,

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We dealt with all of that 40, 40, 50 years ago.

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Uh, but so

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It becomes a kind of a shock

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to the system all over again when you

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Realize the struggles, Uh, and that the sky won't fall

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Because You no longer have a stick in the

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classroom, given that

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Literacy was at the heart of this,

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Then Arguably, well, what the data,

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say, is there were

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Modest improvements in literacy,

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But you have to factor In

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The issue that

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Language acquisition, you know, is

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A, a whole other Ball game,

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Complicated First language, second language.

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So there are four or five

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Prominent languages in Sierra Leone.

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Uh, Mother tongue,

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Saw Creole being the most

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Widespread Language, trying

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to teach English in a context

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Where, Creole Is the language of the

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School,

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And maybe not the language of the home,

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though it is for many.

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And trying to teach English on top of that with a bunch of,

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Uh, teachers.

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And here's one of the really telling

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findings, there was no

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Difference In terms of

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Student Or pupil performance, whether

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Teachers were qualified Or not.

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So despite the fact that

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The government teachers spent, in some instances,

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as many as three years in, a, a, a college

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of education or a teacher training college,

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there was no evidence in the classroom,

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of a, a difference in the quality

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of the teaching and the learning.

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And, that's probably it, it for me,

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that is not so much the issue of did literacy improve.

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If you, if you focus on literacy, as in part

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what was done by the coaches that worked

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with the teachers in the schools, then it's not unreasonable

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to expect some improvement.

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Uh, but given over a three year period

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that it was relatively modest,

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two questions arise for me.

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Uh, and you know, this is an anecdote,

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but an important one.

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When we spoke to the teachers, about

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what the benefits were of working with the coaches,

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they never actually said that, well, as a consequence,

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you know, I'm now doing more interactive pedagogy

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or whatever, repeatedly

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they said, I know, I now know how

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to mark the school register.

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So think about what that tells us

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about the capacity of teachers in those circumstances,

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that a, a sort of a plus in their learning was

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that they now knew how to mark the register.

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When we inquired about,

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because government actually

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provided proforma lesson plans for,

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English in particular.

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Uh, yet the teachers were obliged

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to provide lesson plans, submit them to the head teachers

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for approval, if you like, despite,

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you know, many weeks in the field.

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Uh, we never saw that actually happen.

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Uh, the same thing was to happen when,

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the coaches worked with me

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as a classroom teacher in the school.

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And when we spoke to the teachers

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and said, well, you know, what was the feedback?

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You know, what was the kind of the thing

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that was now going to add some quality to the teaching?

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Uh, the most frequent answer was,

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either he said everything was all right,

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or, I accepted all his suggestions,

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but you never really got to grips with

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what those suggestions were.

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So, well, you know, e even

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with the successes, there's still the question in my head.

15:11.025 --> 15:13.325
So after you've done this intervention,

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it now stops, right?

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So if you take away the coaching

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that brought about these modest successes

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or improvements, well, everything we know about,

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long-term reform is the extent

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to which there's a kind of an attrition of change over time.

15:41.285 --> 15:45.275
So there are two major things in my head.

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One is, what's the capacity that's there

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that you can build on in the first instance,

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once you take away the support, what are you building in

15:58.515 --> 16:00.295
by way of sustainability?

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Uh, when in fact, you know, the teachers are still saying,

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I'm not recognized by government.

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I'm not trained. What I really need is access

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to teacher education.

16:14.665 --> 16:18.525
So for me, at a more personal professional level,

16:19.265 --> 16:23.045
and this is in a way speaks back to the title of the paper

16:23.465 --> 16:26.925
and anatomy of an intervention, is that

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if we've been doing this repeatedly as, as

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NGOs have been doing over time, with

16:40.075 --> 16:41.525
very modest results,

16:41.785 --> 16:44.205
and then you take away the supports,

16:45.595 --> 16:49.135
are you actually demoralizing the workforce

16:49.885 --> 16:52.975
more than you are actually building

16:53.535 --> 16:54.975
capacity in the system?

16:55.475 --> 16:59.095
That's one question allied to it is, is

17:00.285 --> 17:04.345
in doing these interventions, not just in Sierra Leone,

17:04.405 --> 17:08.945
but you know, there are, there are similar efforts in lots

17:08.945 --> 17:12.385
of developing, Southern Hemisphere context.

17:14.575 --> 17:19.275
Are you in effect leaving governments

17:19.495 --> 17:23.315
off the hook by saying, well, we'll do this intervention,

17:23.455 --> 17:25.995
and that allows a government to say, okay, well we,

17:26.135 --> 17:29.515
we won't do anything while you are doing that, so to speak.

17:30.135 --> 17:33.195
Uh, and so 3, 4, 5 years later,

17:34.135 --> 17:37.635
you still have no reform of initial teacher education,

17:38.205 --> 17:40.675
which is really what's necessary and urgent.

00:00 - The context, context on the one hand of Sierra Leone, which is one of the poorest countries on the planet in West Africa, for those who don't know their geography, it was funded by Concern Worldwide, which is known, internationally, a big INGO.

00:24 - they'd had, and their commitment is to work with the poorest of the poor. And, you know, there are other NGOs in the same category. so they were keen as most people are in the aid industry, even though they may not like that term, are keen to identify things that work. And for the likes of concern in particular, they would, you know, one

00:57 - of the great phrases in development work is scaling up. so finding something that works and given concerns, involvement in several other countries, they were keen to, essentially, they put a number of things together. They'd had various single initiatives like, trying to improve agricultural production, reduce gender-based violence, improve literacy levels. So the safe learning model became an effort to put all these elements together

01:38 - in a more multifaceted initiative. But of course, what became core in many respects, was, did the efforts over three, four years, literacy levels in schools. And of course, that would become an important kinda flagship element. So if this works in rural Sierra Leone, then we can transplant it elsewhere. You can't talk about Sierra Leone without mentioning,

02:13 - you know, a very bloody conflict of civil war that went on for 10 years with massive destruction of schools, villages, and so on. So after the war ended, there was this, you know, as often happens, the international donor community say, we're going to get in there and we're going to, you know, help you out, as it were. And, you know, elements of that happened. but again, the, the hundred schools that we worked with, which were for the most part rural schools, some in

02:50 - sort of, you know, reasonable sized towns of five, 10,000 people, but you are talking about villages, with no electricity, no public transport. one meal a day continues to be the norm. so extreme poverty and the education system often, well, an important distinction is there are government recognized schools, but post the Civil War, there are many areas that still have

03:31 - what are called community schools. They're not recognized by the government. Now, here's where it gets complicated. You can have a government appointed principal in those schools who gets paid, but all of the other teachers are what are called community teachers who dependent on the community, who to often pay them in kind with rice, with accommodation, or with, you know, small amounts of Leone.

04:06 - So even though the government in Sierra Leone has since 2018, 19, recognized all primary education as free for many of these communities, that is not the case. So, you know, that's the reality. In fact, just before we began the conversation, I was thinking about one of our postdocs, who did field work as I did going into a school one day, was greeted by an entire class leaving the school precinct,

04:42 - and of course, inquired as to what was going on, only to be told that the teacher, a community teacher, sent them all home to come back with two cups of rice each and 2000 leone. We struggled to establish the profi precise figure of unqualified or community teachers in the hundred schools we worked in, but it certainly was close to 50% teenagers who have done, the equivalent of junior high school, you know, 15, 16 year olds who say, you know, I want to give back to the community.

05:24 - When you talk to them, often they don't, well, they don't either have had, had the academic results or the resources, to go to teacher education colleges. So, but they, there's still an incredible kind of spirit of community that, but also in a sense, tempered by, well, maybe if I do this, I will somehow get to become a qualified teacher. I suppose it's difficult to separate the initiative from the research design.

06:05 - So at the core of this is a randomized control trial around, literacy levels. and so the intervention was introduced. there were sort of coaches, mentors, in, in each school, well, you know, between all of the schools, all of the schools. But, in, in the context of the randomized control trial, we introduced or concern introduced at staged areas. So if you think of four 20 fives, so

06:44 - over the period of the study, 25 of the schools got all of the treatment. And so you can see that back along so that we could see what the impact of the intervention actually was. But not us as a research group were, not entirely enamored with the randomized control only. So in each of four communities, we selected four families and did in-depth studies with the families in an intergenerational way,

07:24 - interviewing grandparents, parents, children. And of course, often, you know, while family in a western context has become, you know, a, a a sort of a, a mess of potage, so to speak, in, in, in a West African Sierra Leone context, you, you hear kids talking about siblings, but in fact their cousins or they've been taken in somewhere. And that's part of the culture and a commitment to community

08:00 - that arguably we don't see in the western world anymore. Older siblings trying to help out younger siblings. The the gender dimension was particularly strong because that's an area that NGOs, in a sense, talk a great deal about. so, and there were interventions in the community so that they spoke to the adults, at, at community meetings about respect and not beating up your wife

08:35 - and so on, in, in the expectation that somehow extending that into the community would have a positive impact in schools. Nonetheless, there was a lot of talk, especially from, well, it didn't matter whether the teachers were qualified or not, but also Elders That now that corporal punishment had been made Illegal by The government, which only happened, you know, in or around five,

09:06 - Six years ago. I've forgotten the actual Date. There Was, on the one hand, a kind of a fear of being reported and potentially Jailed For beating children. Nonetheless, when we spoke to the children, corporal punishment was Sort of widespread In school and in the community. And I suppose, You know, If you put on your Westerners hat,

09:33 - so to speak, Well, in an Irish context, we Abolished Corporal punishment in schools as recently as 1982. so It's not long since, You know, it was quite acceptable In Western context. But nonetheless, The Struggle then of The older Population saying the country has gone to hell,

09:56 - We've lost Children no longer respect Their elders, because You've taken away the fear. Now, arguably, We dealt with all of that 40, 40, 50 years ago. but so It becomes a kind of a shock to the system all over again when you Realize the struggles, and that the sky won't fall Because You no longer have a stick in the classroom, given that

10:23 - Literacy was at the heart of this, Then Arguably, well, what the data, say, is there were Modest improvements in literacy, But you have to factor In The issue that Language acquisition, you know, is A, a whole other Ball game, Complicated First language, second language. So there are four or five

10:59 - Prominent languages in Sierra Leone. Mother tongue, Saw Creole being the most Widespread Language, trying to teach English in a context Where, Creole Is the language of the School, And maybe not the language of the home, though it is for many. And trying to teach English on top of that with a bunch of,

11:31 - teachers. And here's one of the really telling findings, there was no Difference In terms of Student Or pupil performance, whether Teachers were qualified Or not. So despite the fact that The government teachers spent, in some instances, as many as three years in, a, a, a college of education or a teacher training college,

12:04 - there was no evidence in the classroom, of a, a difference in the quality of the teaching and the learning. And, that's probably it, it for me, that is not so much the issue of did literacy improve. If you, if you focus on literacy, as in part what was done by the coaches that worked with the teachers in the schools, then it's not unreasonable to expect some improvement. but given over a three year period

12:42 - that it was relatively modest, two questions arise for me. and you know, this is an anecdote, but an important one. When we spoke to the teachers, about what the benefits were of working with the coaches, they never actually said that, well, as a consequence, you know, I'm now doing more interactive pedagogy or whatever, repeatedly they said, I know, I now know how

13:20 - to mark the school register. So think about what that tells us about the capacity of teachers in those circumstances, that a, a sort of a plus in their learning was that they now knew how to mark the register. When we inquired about, because government actually provided proforma lesson plans for, English in particular. yet the teachers were obliged

14:00 - to provide lesson plans, submit them to the head teachers for approval, if you like, despite, you know, many weeks in the field. we never saw that actually happen. the same thing was to happen when, the coaches worked with me as a classroom teacher in the school. And when we spoke to the teachers and said, well, you know, what was the feedback? You know, what was the kind of the thing

14:38 - that was now going to add some quality to the teaching? the most frequent answer was, either he said everything was all right, or, I accepted all his suggestions, but you never really got to grips with what those suggestions were. So, well, you know, e even with the successes, there's still the question in my head. So after you've done this intervention, it now stops, right?

15:17 - So if you take away the coaching that brought about these modest successes or improvements, well, everything we know about, long-term reform is the extent to which there's a kind of an attrition of change over time. So there are two major things in my head. One is, what's the capacity that's there that you can build on in the first instance, once you take away the support, what are you building in by way of sustainability?

16:01 - when in fact, you know, the teachers are still saying, I'm not recognized by government. I'm not trained. What I really need is access to teacher education. So for me, at a more personal professional level, and this is in a way speaks back to the title of the paper and anatomy of an intervention, is that if we've been doing this repeatedly as, as NGOs have been doing over time, with very modest results,

16:41 - and then you take away the supports, are you actually demoralizing the workforce more than you are actually building capacity in the system? That's one question allied to it is, is in doing these interventions, not just in Sierra Leone, but you know, there are, there are similar efforts in lots of developing, Southern Hemisphere context. Are you in effect leaving governments off the hook by saying, well, we'll do this intervention,

17:23 - and that allows a government to say, okay, well we, we won't do anything while you are doing that, so to speak. and so 3, 4, 5 years later, you still have no reform of initial teacher education, which is really what's necessary and urgent.

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