Improving Early Grade Education Across Kenya

Improving education quality is key to Kenya’s Vision 2030, which aims to transform Kenya into a “middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all of its citizens by the year 2030.” 

Across Kenya, literacy rates in primary schools were lower than expected despite decades of investment and implementation of evidence-based innovations (Piper et al. 2018). The Kenyan education system is seeking to improve learning outcomes by instilling better instructional practices, expanding resources for teacher training, and developing learning materials that support multilingual literacy.

In 2014, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), with support from the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), awarded the Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity. Taking its name from the Kiswahili word for “Let’s Read,” Tusome aims to dramatically improve primary literacy outcomes for approximately 7 million Kenyan children in grades 1–3.

Under the leadership of the Kenyan Ministry of Education (MOE), RTI is the prime implementer of Tusome, supported by partner organizations—Women Educational Researchers of Kenya, Worldreader, and Dalberg-Global Development Advisors.

Two major aspects of Tusome set it apart: its rigorous evidence-based approach and its national scale.

The project builds upon the approach developed under the successful Primary Mathematics and Reading (PRIMR) initiative, which ran from 2011–2014. Also led by the MOE, funded by USAID and FCDO and implemented by RTI, PRIMR tested early grade learning interventions to assess their effectiveness and potential for national scale-up. PRIMR determined which ingredients of instructional improvement were most critical for learning, which types of information communication technology (ICT) support could make the most impact, and whether and how decisions about the language of instruction could support learning.

Working through Kenya’s existing education system and personnel, Tusome aims to go beyond PRIMR’s success to achieve even greater improvements in learning outcomes for nearly seven million children in grades 1-3 in all of Kenya’s public schools, 96 special needs education schools, and 1,500 Alternative Provision of Basic Education Institutions in urban slums of Kenya.

Tusome focuses on four key interventions to improve literacy outcomes: 

• Enhancing teachers’ capacity to effectively deliver classroom instruction
• Improving schools’ access to appropriate books and other learning materials
• Expanding instructional support and supervision
• Collaborating with other literacy actors throughout all levels of the education system.

For successful interventions at the national level, the Tusome team partners with government institutions across Kenya to implement Tusome. The Ministry of Education led team conducts workshops, trainings, and sensitization meetings that involve stakeholders from all the country’s 47 counties. The program also focuses on revising teaching and learning materials (print and digital), developing new training manuals, and deploying digital solutions, including RTI’s open-source coaching software, Tangerine:Coach, to support classroom observation and provide feedback to teachers.

Tusome’s rigorous commitment to monitoring, evaluation, and learning fuels constant improvement across project activities.

Classroom data collected using Tangerine^® allows stakeholders to gain actionable insights about what is working for teachers and students. MOE Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs) conducted classroom observation and student assessments, supplying data for evaluations of the quality of program implementation and student learning. These data allow MOE decision makers to monitor progress and make informed judgments and adjustments as necessary. Based on this experience, the MOE adopted tablet-based supervision and support to strengthen and sustainably monitor learning across other learning areas and grades.

Teacher Guides have been revised multiple times, informed by data collected by the CSOs when conducting their site visits. MOE and Tusome staff reviewed information on the areas participants struggled with to inform the design of the materials for the next teacher training program. In this way the program continually learns and adapts to the needs of teachers and students.

National scale program effectiveness depends on large scale implementation of teachers across the country. The MOE needs methods to determine whether and how the program is being implemented. To rapidly respond, the MOE and the Tusome team work together to undertake observations in the classroom, but also observations of the CSO coaches. The simple tools these officers use allow the government to understand whether and how the program is being effectively implemented, what teacher training support is required, and which portions of the country are struggling the most. This has allowed the Tusome program to design national scale teacher training to respond to specific technical issues, to inform the MOE on which counties need increased support and inform national communication to coaches and teachers on technical approaches to focus on. 

The power of this MERLA approach has caused the Ministry to expand the Tusome data dashboard from Grade 1-3 to the entire system and to develop tools for other cadre of education officers who can combine with the CSO coaches to provide broader quality improvement support nationally. 

Improved Materials and Instruction Result in Impressive Reading Gains

Tusome’s efforts have ensured that students have their own set of reading materials by successfully delivering more than 26 million books to schools, thereby ensuring, for the first time, a 1:1 book ratio in both English and Kiswahili classes. 

Tusome has also supported the Government of Kenya (GoK) to revise its book policy to apply those savings and efficiencies in other subject/ learning areas. In 2019 and 2020, the GoK printed and distributed books in other subjects and grades at a near 1:1 ratio, at significant savings of nearly three times, based on policy advice from Tusome and practical changes within government systems. 

In 2019, the GoK used its own resources to print and distribute approximately 2.3 million Tusome textbooks, showing that implementing alongside, and within government, structures can lead to government expenditure and intervention over the long term. The inclusion of Tusome materials in the MOE’s proscribed reading list for schools, the so-called Orange Book, was a milestone demonstrating GoK uptake of Tusome materials.

Through coordinated training and mentoring activities, teachers are now better equipped to improve learning outcomes. Tusome increased the skills of teachers by using the CSOs to deliver Tusome-designed teacher professional development training. With technical support, these officers provide much more interactive and effective teacher coaching that is more likely to lead to instructional change. The support officers use digital tablets to scaffold their instructional feedback, record the learning outcomes from learners in each class, and upload the results to a simple collective dashboard.

Tusome’s efforts have resulted in impressive gains in reading in both Kiswahili and English in grades 1 and 2. In the external midline evaluation, the percentage of nonreader students in English Class 2 dropped from 38 percent to 12 percent between 2015-2016. Simultaneously, the percentage of students reading fluently increased from 12 percent to 27 percent.   

Inclusive Education in Kenya 

Results of a 2017 nationally representative assessment of learning outcomes for the blind and for the deaf indicated that few children were reading fluently with comprehension and additional resources to support learning for these populations are sorely needed.

To ensure that all students have access to quality learning through accessible teaching and learning materials and individualized support, Tusome worked alongside technical teams from several government institutions, among them the Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE), the Kenya Institute for the Blind, and the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to develop learner textbooks and teachers’ guides for use with Grades 1 to 3 learners who are blind and those who are deaf. Every special unit and special school for the deaf and the blind have been provided with 1:1 books and teacher’s guides, enough for each teacher and learner in those.

Collaboration Leads to Sustainability 

The ultimate demonstration of success by Tusome will be the transition to ownership by the Kenyan government in 2021. Through systematic collaboration with Kenyan institutions responsible for policy and management, curriculum, teacher support, special needs, and assessment, Tusome is helping to build capacity while focusing on the specific task of improving learning outcomes. This twofold effort is far more effective than discrete capacity building efforts, as Tusome is showing that “learning by doing” is what impacts long-term success and sustainability.

The Tusome experience, and that of PRIMR before it, serves as a model for learning, adapting, and implementing effective research-based practices at scale in partnership with government.  

From devising new approaches for design and distribution of student books and teacher’s guides, to improving the effectiveness of classroom-based coaching and professional development for teachers, Tusome staff and GoK officials collaborated to institutionalize evidence-based approaches that have led to more than doubling the share of students reading at grade level, a dramatic improvement for millions of learners and a key factor in helping Kenya to achieve the goals of its Vision 2030. 

Validation of these approaches from the highest levels of government, including a highly visible public launch by Kenya’s President at the start of Tusome, have demonstrated leadership support and helped smooth future adoption at all levels of government. The seeds for sustained learning improvement were carefully cultivated, have taken root, and now should bear fruit for many years to come. 

Lessons and results from PRIMR and Tusome have been documented and shared with national and global practitioners and policy-makers through numerous peer-reviewed research articles, blogs and videos. See the section below to access these additional resources and click here to learn more about our work in Kenya.