This series is part of the essays I've written as part of the PGLA module.
Bob Talbert once said, ‘Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is the best.” It is a given that if we have good quality teachers who impart good quality teaching, students learn better.
Teachers form the backbone of our education system and they need to be properly trained before they start teaching students. In developing countries, due to a lack of funding and poor access to proper resources, teachers are not trained properly. This essay focuses on the different ways in which the quality of teaching can be improved in developing countries. This topic falls under target 4.c of UN’s (United Nations) Sustainability Development Goal #4 – Quality Education. The target says and I quote, ‘Proportion of teachers in (a) pre-primary; (b) primary; (c) lower secondary; and (d) upper secondary education who have received at least the minimum organized teacher training (e.g. pedagogical training) pre-service or in-service required for teaching at the relevant level in a given country.’
Firstly, there is the issue of supply and demand. Good quality teachers are in high demand, but we have very few of them. Therefore, the logical step would be to increase the supply of qualified teachers. For this, one needs to understand why there is a dearth of good quality teachers. One of the reasons people are reluctant or not motivated enough to take up teaching as their career in developing countries is because they’re not paid well enough. For instance, in India, the average salary for a primary school teacher is INR 24,100 (£ 241) per month. In contrast, a software engineer with the same education and skills earns around INR 50,000 (£ 500) per month. This shows that the teaching profession isn’t as attractive or lucrative as other professions. A possible solution for this problem could be to simply increase teacher salaries and make it more attractive for people. For this to happen, governments should earmark more funds for education in their annual budgets. [ Research in Chile has shown that as average teacher salaries more than doubled over the past decade, higher-quality students entered the teacher education programs.
Secondly, many teachers do not have the required knowledge or pedagogical skills to teach students, which therefore affects the student’s ability to learn. In India, 99% of aspirants failed the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) in 2012 conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, which is an alarming situation for both the teachers and students. One of the solutions is to have comprehensive teacher education programs with a focus on both the subject matter and the pedagogy. Teachers can be given incentives and rewards for passing tests like the CTET. Access to resources can make things better for teachers. For instance, in Africa, enhanced teacher training workshops have helped in bridging the gap in quality education.
Thirdly, poor access to learning materials and is a cause of concern. Here, technology can come to aid both teachers as well as students. Teachers can be remotely trained at scale using online technologies such as Zoom and Edmodo. Students can get access to higher-quality learning material online. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how such remote tools can be leveraged.
My specific aim would be to improve the quality of teachers in developing countries by making sure they have access to the right kind of resources and funding support that they need. To this end, I will start a project called ‘Quality Education 4 All’ (QE4A) – a focused initiative to help developing countries get the funding that they need for education initiatives. First and foremost, this project would need a dedicated and passionate team of volunteers. Therefore, I will first conduct interviews to recruit a smart bunch of people. The QE4A project would run in developing countries with the help of local government bodies and volunteer support. NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would be approached for funding. Once a corpus has been collected, specific initiatives will be run as campaigns in the affected developing countries. Each country is different, and it has its own unique set of problems, and therefore this project will be tailored to the needs of each participating country.
My day-to-day practice would be to first keep in touch with the happenings in each participating country in QE4A, strategize what would work and what wouldn’t, draw up a plan of action, and set it in motion. One of the aspects of QE4A would be to leverage technology to provide solutions and so, this will involve real-time reporting and status updates via a central dashboard. Each day would expose my team and me to new challenges, allowing us to learn, adapt and solve the challenge.
My strategy would be one of cultural competency and empathy. I realize that each country operates differently with different traditions and sentiments. So, for example, what works in India might not work in China because they are traditionally different countries. I would like to understand in-depth, the aspirations and motivations of my teammates who have all come together to solve this pivotal problem. My leadership style would be a combination of these topologies – leadership as a person, leadership as a result, and leadership as a process. A good leader must combine all the above approaches to be successful. I’d also like to be a transparent leader with clear goals for my teams to achieve. I’d like to ensure that my team’s viewpoints are considered and therefore, these goals are formulated with their involvement and consent.
What resources would I need?
I would need both financial and human resources to address the problem of QE4A. As described above, QE4A would need a multidisciplinary team of people who are equipped with the right skillsets to solve this challenge. This team would consist of financial planners, fundraisers, educators, educational administrators, professors from reputed higher education providers among others. In specific, these people should have good research skills, and the ability to communicate complex information clearly in a simple manner, an ability to work in a fast-paced environment, the ability to network well with a range of people from across different walks of life, and good interpersonal skills, apart from being passionate about the problem QE4A is solving.
The Chinese government has donated $8 million to 8 African countries as part of the UNESCO-China Funds-in-Trust (CFIT) project in 2018 to improve the quality of teacher training. Having this as a reference, I extrapolate that QE4A would need around $ 20 million to focus initially on 6 developing countries. For the initial pilot, I would like to focus on countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Philippines. As discussed above, this fund will be raised in cooperation with NGOs like the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, philanthropists, and governments like China who are willing to donate.
What obstacles would I be likely to encounter? What would I do about them? There are many obstacles I foresee. Let’s discuss them in detail. Firstly, there is the challenge of recruiting a passionate team that’s willing and committed to working on QE4A. Identifying the skillsets required and getting the people with the right skillsets is a time-consuming and challenging process. For smooth and effective recruitment, we need people who are specialized in people management like recruiters and head-hunters. We’ll also need to set up essential services like human resources, payroll, and the necessary infrastructure for QE4A to function. Secondly, there is the challenge of fund-raising. I foresee that liaising with NGOs, pitching QE4A, getting the necessary capital to start QE4A would be a challenge. The best way to overcome this obstacle is to contact fund-raisers who have been successful in the past and get them on board. They will be in the best position to pitch QE4A to NGOs and raise the necessary funds. Thirdly, measuring the accuracy and impact of the teacher training program in the chosen countries might be a challenge. These countries are usually not great at reporting and accountability, so QE4A must establish these metrics and processes.
What would success look like?
As we all know, bringing a long-term lasting impact takes time. And it is the same with the education sector. For instance, the Chinese government has been funding the CFIT project for four years. So, I believe to see any significant progress, QE4A must run for a minimum of 5 years. Over this period, the proportion of teachers in pre-primary must increase by 20%, primary teachers must increase by 15%, and upper secondary teachers by 10%. Teachers receiving pedagogical training must increase by 20% and the number of teacher trainers must increase by 15%. That’s what success would look like. Some of these numbers may look ambitious, but with proper planning and strategic focus, I believe that they can be achieved.
In conclusion, QE4A comprises a three-step approach that can help improve the quality of teachers in developing countries.