Few months after the World Bank released its education strategy for eastern and western Africa, Martin Elias De Simone, Education Specialist and Economist with the Bank speaks about EdoBEST, a basic education intervention programme which he describes as a model worth emulating for wholescale system transformation. Excerpts:
Your team has been to Edo State to assess the EdoBEST reforms which have been on for a number of years now. How was your visit?
I really enjoyed staying in Edo State. We had an opportunity to have discussions about the progress in terms of the EdoBEST project but also our support from the World Bank to that specific project which is through the Programme for Results (PforR). We had discussions with top government officials and of course with the entire EdoBEST project team and the different component teams.
In addition to that, we had an opportunity to visit some schools: one rural or semi-rural and the other one urban to see the EdoBEST programme in practice – see how the teachers are using scripted lessons in the tablets, how the tablets actually track their progress in real-time, how the Learning and Development Officers give specific recommendations to the teachers and how the Quality Assurance Officers are in charge of supervising and cross-checking the quality of the programme overall.
We saw some solid interventions that we think are going to have an important impact on education outcomes in the state. Of course, there is always room for improvement and we think that one of the key issues might be the sustainability of the project.
You have spoken about a lot of things you saw during your visit, what is the most fulfilling part in all of this?
Definitely, the most fulfilling part was going to the schools to see the programme in action and see how the kids were very engaged. The children and students were super focused on their tasks and how the teachers were very involved in the learning process.
We had the opportunity to meet with some teachers that were really committed to their jobs. Seeing that was definitely the most interesting part because it reminds you that everything that is done in an office or done by your own team, at the end of the day, has an impact on the ground.
Let us talk about EdoBEST. It is obvious that the World Bank wants more Nigerian states to be uplifted through similar programmes. What exactly is the World Bank seeing that is informing that line of thinking?
What we see is that many of the interventions that we evidence worldwide and especially in sub-Saharan Africa show you that our skills for learning are being of EdoBEST.
For example, one of the things that we see is that in context, where you have relatively low teacher quality which is a problem that is very common in Nigeria, scripted lessons are very useful especially for early grades because they provide a guideline in terms of how to conduct the class. There is a lot of evidence of this in different sub-Saharan Africa including some rigorous evidence for example from Gambia, Kenya and other countries. That is one key ingredient.
The second key ingredient that we see is that one of the main factors to determine learning levels is the quality of the teachers. Of course, there are a lot of things to improve in the quality of teachers in Edo State. Many of the constraints concern the structure problems that Nigeria has. But we do see that there is some effort to improve the pedagogue of the groups of teachers through for example, the Learning and Development Officers who give specific feedback based on the science of learning. That is another thing we think that is going to have a big impact in terms of learning outcomes in the next few years.
If you really want to guarantee learning, you need a few things. You need the teachers to be in the class and the students to be in the class which is something that EdoBEST is doing through the tracking of attendance which I understand has improved significantly in the last couple of years. But in addition, you also need the right instructional method.
One of the things we are trying to focus on now is improving reading sub-skills to ensure that more children are able to read and understand simple stories by the time they finish lower primary school – the first three years of primary school.
So basically, what we see is that many of the interventions relating to learning interventions to improve learning outcomes are being implemented in Edo State. Many of them, of course, require improvement and refinement but the efforts are there and that is why we think that many other states could learn from the experience of Edo State.
Do you think that this methodology adopted by EdoBEST should become something like a national policy? Do you think that that is a panacea to poor learning outcomes as we see across the country today?
Nothing is a panacea for education, you really have to adapt the intervention to a specific context. We know that Nigeria is a very diverse country and the challenges you find in the North of the country are completely different from the challenges you find in the South of the country.
Definitely, I think many other states that have seen the constraints can learn from the experience of Edo and I do think that some of the interventions are definitely significant for the national level.
For example, you here have a strong focus on data and information systems and this is something that we are trying to support with the development of our Education Management Information System. That is essential for any education system and for all 36 states at the national level. So, there are certain things that we should be replicating and essentially scaled up and there are certain things that other states that are in similar situations can learn a lot of lessons. We are hoping that during the Education Week in January, we can have a forum with representatives from different states who also learned from your experience to exchange knowledge and hopefully, they would be able to replicate and scale up, adapting them to their contexts of course, many of the interventions that you have here.
Do you think that the major reason EdoBEST is making an impact is because of scripted lessons or a combination of many other factors?
I think it is a combination of many factors. If I have to tell you the two main factors, I think it is the scripted lessons and the role of the learning and development officers. If you have only the scripted lessons, but the teachers do not know how to really deliver them or they do not understand the content then the scripted lessons are not going to be useful.
But if you have the scripted lessons plus the specific support to the teachers, someone that goes and tells them, “This is when you can do or conduct your lessons”. Also, very importantly, what we have seen is that the teachers tend to be receptive to this feedback. I imagine that probably when you started with EdoBEST, it must have been more complicated because there might be reluctance to these changes in structure. Now, what we see is that they are very receptive. So, I think those two key factors are the ones that are probably going to determine the success of the programme.
And there is a third element that I think is very important which maybe was not part of the original a little bit but now we see a lot of progress in the programme which is measuring learning outcomes because you cannot know how much you are progressing if you are not measuring the development outcomes. What we see in the last couple of years, a lot of classroom assessment has been done to measure learning outcomes for some subjects but we are also supporting a large scale state level assessment to measure basic skills and maths skills for grades 3, 6 and 9 and is even being expanded to senior secondary education so those are the three things that I would say are going to change the reality of learning in Edo.
What other comment would you like to make with respect to what you have seen in Edo State?
I would like to make two comments. The first one is maybe personal. I come from a family for which education has been very important. I am the first one in my family to finish primary school and then secondary school and then university and master’s degree. My parents did not finish primary school. So, I really see the impact that education can have in a family, in a community and in a society as a whole. I really think what you are doing here can have an impact on the lives of many of these children that are part of Edo State.
There is one key aspect which is that this intervention needs to be sustained and it needs to be sustained across political cycles. That is why I think that the involvement of the community, the involvement of the parents and socialising about the importance of this intervention is key so they can create the demand to sustain this intervention.
The second thing that I would like to say is we can talk about main interventions and what works to improve educational standards, but nothing of that works if you do not have one key thing and that key thing is a high-level political commitment to drive education reforms.
In many cases, you have countries trying to implement the interventions at the technical level but they do not really have the support and the high-level political commitment that drives the reforms. That is something that we know we have seen in the past and that is key to drive changes in the education sector.
At the end of the day, we also think that that high-level political commitment will help us in the educational sector. We want children to start with the proper education stimulation they get in school. We want them to actually attend school and receive the learning then we want them to continue their education and receive the skills that will progress them into productive fulfilled citizens. That is something we have also seen when we visited the Innovation Hub for example. So, it is not that your efforts stop at the basic level, they are being expanded at the senior secondary level as well and they continue till tertiary education.
We are very happy to see that level of commitment and that is what encourages us at the World Bank to come and support you because we know that if we bring the evidence to a place where there is no commitment, we are not going to support you efficiently but if we bring the evidence and the resources to a place where there is high-level commitment, we are going to succeed.
Let me throw one more thing, in Edo State, we have something called the progressive school model where you have pupils in rural areas receiving the same quality of education as those in urban centres, all these with a little reorganisation of the system. Do you think that this is a model that should be encouraged?
There are many things you learn from the progressive system. If I understand well, the kids are not grouped according to their ages but are grouped depending on how you can group them based on their level of learning. That could be helpful in remote areas where many teachers are difficult to employ. I am very glad to see that you have started the expansion of EdoBEST to EdoBEST Progressive to reach everyone.
That has been a priority to reach the most vulnerable and I think going forward, it is important to have interventions to guarantee the quality is the same. For example, the teachers have the same resources which are something SUBEB does in Edo. Not only that, you also have the same kind of training. It is something that we can learn a lot from to expand to rural or remote areas in Nigeria where, unfortunately today, we see that the learning levels are much lower than in urban areas or places with more access to resources.
And the way you are grouping your classes is a good opportunity to move to a system where you can teach at the right level, not just based on the age of the children and how the children progress in the educational system, but based on their actual skills. I think that the conversations should start by thinking about things such as adaptive learning. Of course, you can do it in the urban areas as well but it is a great model
