Guest blog by Atique ur Rehman, Ayesha Husain and Zobia Khan
Context
It has been witnessed that high quality early years childhood education significantly impact the economy and society. The benefits of quality early years education aid in children’s development of cognitive, language, numeracy, and motor skills, which prepares them for entry into primary school.
The School Education Department, Government of Punjab and its allied educational institutions such as Program Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PMIU), Punjab Examination Commission (PEC), Quaid-e-Azam Academy for Educational Development (QAED) and Punjab Curriculum Textbook Board (PCTB) are struggling to plan, implement, support, monitor and scaling up the early years education.
QAED was tasked with establishing Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), and as a result, close to 13000 ECCE have been established across Punjab with the aid of allied institutions. However, 35,000 or more ECCE are still needed in Punjab to fully cover the population.
Schools with ECCE classrooms must meet the minimal quality standards outlined in the ECCE policy 2017 and competencies elaborated in Single National Curriculum (SNC) 2020 by the Government of Punjab in order to be considered operational.
Diagnosing the problem
School Education System in Punjab in ECCE is undergoing through many reforms. However, one of the biggest issues is that teachers in ECCE are unable to support students’ learning needs, which causes students’ performance in higher grades to suffer. There is not a formal assessment mechanism in place for ECCE classes. Teachers assess pupils verbally to determine who moves to the next class. How well pupils are progressing is affected by a lack of an assessment mechanism/framework and it is unknown what learning outcomes they have attained. There is lack of teaching learning materials in ECCE classroom, teachers are inadequately trained, ECCE classrooms are multi-age (3 to 11 years) and multi grade (ECCE to 5 grades) due to lack of infrastructure facilities, and Caregiver is appointed in ad-hoc bases. Above all, the allied institutions have lack of collaboration. There is duplication of roles across different institutions, which suggests that they work independent of each other. For instance, PEC, PCTB and QAED do not have regular and frequent interaction with each other in order to share relevant work, information, insights and recommendations.
The problem statement, “Teachers are unable to support the students’ learning in Early Childhood Care and Education,” was developed by a group of us who were working for the Punjab Government’s School Education Department and PDIA.
This 12-week journey began with the construction, reconstruction, and reconstruction of the problem statement. Understanding the local context, engaging the greatest number of stakeholders, interacting with various educational institutions, learning, unlearning, and relearning were all part of the process. This all process was not possible with a strong team that was intensely focus on their learning how to lead. The PDIA approach and faculty enabled us to keep an eye on small wins and small wins surprised with big achievements that were witnessed through this process.
Constructing the problem using PDIA What is the problem?
Teachers are unable to support the students’ learning in Early Childhood Care and Education
Why does it matter?
The School Education Department does not measure Early Childhood Care and Education learning however, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021 indicates that most Pakistani students are not learning to read at grade level in primary school. Forty-nine percent of grade 3 children could not read sentences in the language of instruction in their schools (Urdu, and English). Why does it matter? A Baseline survey (2022) conducted by our project below figure 1 shows that fifty-four percent of grade 1 children are unable to identify the letter. The Letter Identification (English) subtasks cover English language familiarity skills that children need to acquire to effectively learn and serve as foundation of reading skills.
Why does it matter?
The gap between the academic achievements of students who do not learn to read by grade 1 and those who do grows exponentially every year. If a student is not a good reader at the end of grade 1, there is a probability (.88) that he/she will remain a poor reader at the end of grade 4 (Juel, 1994). As a result, we observed massive dropout in higher grades.
To whom does it matter?
The lack of quality education has the greatest impact on children and parents because most uneducated parents are unable to support their children. The Department of School Education and Pakistan’s future generations are also concerned.
Who needs to care more?
School Education Department, QAED, PMIU, PEC, PCTB, DEAs, schools teachers and community/parents
How to improve the situation? School Education Department may bridge the gaps between allied institutions to play their due role to develop students assessment mechanism, improve teaching learning content/materials, develop teacher training modules, train teachers and caregivers, develop mentoring and coaching system to improve literacy and numeracy in early grades.
What will the problem look like when it is solved?
All children in Punjab can learn to read and read to learn by grade 3.
Deconstructing the problem using Fishbone tool (version 1)
As a team we have narrowed down the problem into different root causes. This helps in prioritizing some of the areas to work on and make small progress. The below figure elaborates causes of the problems, are a lack of systematic assessment plan, process restrains, lack of policy implementations, lack of institution coordination, content development and teacher training.
Iterated version of problem deconstruction (version 2)
Discussing the problem with different stakeholders to learn the root causes of the problem helped to priorities the areas. After different iteration the below fishbone diagram updated and root courses of the problems are rephrased and additional sub-causes (highlighted) were added:
The other tools were also used to deep dig out the problem causes and to do small steps to resolve it. Such as Triple-A change space analysis worksheet to reflect on the contextual change space for your AAA (Authority to engage, Acceptance & Ability) estimation for each sub-cause. Finally, determine the change space for each sub cause (large change space, some change space or no change space).
Where will you look for your authorization needs? – this tool helped look it the different authorizations and assumption to engage them. Iteration worksheet – It helped to plan different weekly actions, learn issues, reflect on challenges and next move.
Local problem and local solution – problem diagnosis
The team thinks that ‘miscommunication’ contributes to data collecting and making sense through leadership lens. The addressing this problem statement required to engage multiple stakeholder and to meet their interest level through frequent communication would be a challenge too.
‘Power of small things” with a defined objective and small wins can have a great impact. The fact that these small wins add up to major goal attainment inspires me as well. It’s also true that celebrating a modest victory can lead to feelings of fulfilment and joy that ultimately lead to inner fulfilment. This promotes persistence in pursuing the following small steps and ultimately the main goal.
However, this process requires support system from the organization head, authorities and stakeholders.
Some significant learning points the team learned are:
- better comprehend the dynamics and effectiveness of PDIA (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation).
- encouraged an experimental and iterative approach where multiple ideas were identified and then put into action.
- evident in resolving the problems, the process of continuous feedback and input from stakeholders enables the development of a solution that matches the local context.
- important it is to involve the community and parents as well as other pertinent stakeholders in reform efforts.
- The PDIA materials helps us to reflect on our own lives, our practices, our strengths and areas for development. From taking stock of our time, to building an environment of trust and empathy, to giving clear and compelling direction, to making notes of what worked and what didn’t on a daily basis, each reading added to our learning.
- We have learnt that reforms need a well-defined local problem with its causes to understand why and whom it matters, who needs to care more and how to persuade them to give it more attention? The second stage of the reform journey begins with a series of iterations with both identified and unidentified stakeholders. This process then requires a strong team, which they develop by practicing trust. As a result it helps the team and individuals build a belief system in order to solve the problem with the collective efforts.
We have made good progress on our problem. We brainstormed, de-constructed, got information from different stakeholders and looked at the problem from different angles. We have a clear idea of what is going on but the question is, will we alone be able to bring about any change. Multiple people and departments are involved if our teachers are to be supported. Bringing all stakeholders together, ensuring that everyone works in an organized and consistent way towards achieving a shared vision would be a challenge, especially given the changing political climate.
This PDIA approach will make us tackle problems differently. We will use the fishbone as a tool to help me tackle problems in a more systematic way. We will actively think of what worked and what didn’t. We will try our best to keep our team’s morale high and acknowledge and celebrate each milestone – big or small.
Ms. Ayesha will use the progress diary to see what works what doesn’t and why. To understand the catalysts, nourishers, inhibitors and toxins. To see patterns in team members style of work and to celebrate progress no matter how small.
Ms. Zobia is planning to use PDIA for Formative Assessment Implementation.
Mr. Atique aligned his project objectives with the PDIA course. Together, the team, hired firm and team create content for ECCE teachers and students, develop training modules for teachers, and train ECCE teachers in 3400 schools across Punjab. The team is also helpful in this endeavor. As a result, teaching, learning, and assessment resources will be accessible to teachers and students, and teachers will be qualified to instruct and evaluate learners. In the end, student learning will be evaluated and improved in order to support their continued education in higher grades.
This blog was written by the alumni of the PDIA for Education Systems Online Executive Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 56 participants from 8 countries successfully completed this 12-week program from September – December 2022.