Time to Teach: Teacher attendance and time on task in West and Central Africa

Time to Teach: Teacher attendance and time on task in West and Central Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Ximena Játiva; Despina Karamperidou; Michelle Mills; Stefania Vindrola; Hanna Wedajo; Andrea Dsouza; Jessica Bergmann

Published: 2022 Innocenti Research Report
Teachers are the most important drivers of students’ academic achievement and they are at the heart of learning recovery efforts. Finding out the bottlenecks and necessary conditions for ensuring teachers’ presence at school and in the classroom is essential. Time to Teach is a mixed methods research initiative that aims to find out the contextual, working conditions and policy factors impeding primary school teacher attendance in 11 West and Central African countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, The Gambia, and Togo. 

The study considers teacher attendance as multi-dimensional, in four distinct forms. Teachers were asked to about their attendance in relation to: (1) being school; (2) being punctual (arriving and leaving on time); (3) being the classroom; and (4) spending sufficient time on task. Evidence is drawn from national, system-wide qualitative data collection and school observations, and a quantitative survey of 1,673 teachers working in 234 purposively selected primary schools. While primary data were collected prior to the COVID-19 school closures (in the 2018/2019 school year), the study provides important insights on how the pandemic has exacerbated chronic challenges of education systems that impact teacher attendance and is therefore informative for policy, both in the current COVID-19 era and beyond.


Cite this publication | No. of pages: 68 | Thematic area: Education, WCARO | Tags: central africa, education, teachers, west africa
Réouvrir les écoles avec résilience: Leçons tirées de l’enseignement à distance pendant la COVID-19 en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre

Réouvrir les écoles avec résilience: Leçons tirées de l’enseignement à distance pendant la COVID-19 en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre

AUTHOR(S)
Marco Valenza; Yacouba Dijbo Abdou; Thomas Dreesen

Published: 2021 Innocenti Research Report
Les pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre ont mis en œuvre des mesures nationales pour poursuivre les activités d’apprentissage pendant la fermeture des écoles. Ces mesures reposaient sur une combinaison de modalités de diffusion : des plateformes en ligne, des médias audiovisuels, des téléphones portables et des supports imprimés. Cependant, plusieurs obstacles ont empêché de nombreux enfants et adolescents de la région de profiter de ces opportunités d’apprentissage, dans un contexte où, même avant la pandémie, près de 50 % d’entre eux n'atteignaient pas les compétences minimales en lecture à la fin du cycle primaire. En s’appuyant sur les données régionales disponibles, ce rapport met en évidence les principales leçons à tirer en matière d’apprentissage à distance et fournit des recommandations concrètes pour renforcer la résilience des systèmes éducatifs nationaux face aux fermetures des écoles.
Reopening With Resilience: Lessons from remote learning during COVID-19 in West and Central Africa

Reopening With Resilience: Lessons from remote learning during COVID-19 in West and Central Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Marco Valenza; Yacouba Dijbo Abdou; Thomas Dreesen

Published: 2021 Innocenti Research Report

Countries in West and Central Africa strived to implement national responses to continue learning activities during school closures. These responses relied on a mix of channels, including online platforms, broadcast media, mobile phones and printed learning packs. Several barriers, however, still prevented many children and adolescents in the region from taking advantage of these opportunities, resulting in learning loss in a region where almost 50 per cent of children do not achieve minimum reading skills at the end of the primary cycle. This report builds on existing evidence to highlight key lessons learned in continuing education for all at times of mass school closures and provides actionable recommendations to build resilience into national education systems in view of potential future crises. 

Time to Teach: L’assiduité des enseignants et le temps consacré à l’enseignement en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre

Time to Teach: L’assiduité des enseignants et le temps consacré à l’enseignement en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre

Published: 2021 Innocenti Research Report

En Afrique subsaharienne, la perte d'heures d'enseignement due à l'absentéisme des enseignants correspond à un gaspillage d'environ 46 centimes pour chaque euro investi dans l'éducation, soit un gaspillage annuel de 1 à 3 % du PIB. Cette note résume les résultats de recherches menées dans 11 pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre dans le cadre de l'étude Time to Teach, un projet de l'UNICEF qui étudie les raisons des différentes formes d'absentéisme des enseignants du primaire. Il analyse la fréquence de l'absentéisme des enseignants sous quatre formes – absence de l'école, retard ou départ prématuré, absence de la classe et temps d´enseignement en classe réduit – et les raisons invoquées par les enseignants pour leur absence. Mais les enseignants sont également motivés par des facteurs tels que la formation, la disponibilité des ressources d'apprentissage et d'autres facteurs positifs. Plus de détails sont disponibles dans les rapports pays.

Cite this publication | No. of pages: 8 | Thematic area: Education | Tags: central africa, primary schools, teachers, west africa
Simulation of the Effects of the Economic Crisis and Response Policies on Children in West and Central Africa: The Case of Burkina Faso

Simulation of the Effects of the Economic Crisis and Response Policies on Children in West and Central Africa: The Case of Burkina Faso

AUTHOR(S)
Lacina Balma; John Cockburn; Ismaël Fofana; Samuel Kaboré; Luca Tiberti

Published: 2010 Innocenti Working Papers
Burkina Faso’s hard earned economic gains in recent years have been eroded by the 2008-09 world financial and economic crisis. The country will particularly feel the effects of the world economic crisis due to its close links with the world economy. Most of the adverse effects are transmitted to households then passed onto children. The situation of children principally depends on the monetary and non-monetary wellbeing of their household. This, together with their greater vulnerability, means that children are at risk of suffering more, and for longer, from the impacts of the crisis. It is therefore crucial to understand and anticipate the effects that the crisis may have on children in Burkina Faso and to propose options for social protection to counter these effects. To this end, we propose a macro-micro economic approach. Macro-micro economic analysis uses a general calculable equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate the impacts of various transmission channels of the crisis to the Burkinabe economy. The results of these simulations are then used for the micro-econometric analysis, which integrates individual and household economic behaviour to evaluate the impact of the crisis on child welfare. A monetary transfer policy targeting poor children appears to be the most effective at reversing the negative effects of the crisis and returning to the trend that would have existed without the crisis. Such a policy, financed by external aid and with a budget of 1% of GDP, re-establishes the trend that monetary poverty would have followed in the absence of a crisis and even leads to a reduction in hunger. It also limits the crisis’ adverse effects on school enrolment, child labour and sick children’s access to modern health care services. A universal (non-targeted) variant of this transfer policy for 0-5 year-olds has similar results and is easier to enact. Policies which subsidize food and cereals, as well as monetary transfer policies for the Centre and Mouhoun regions (the areas most affected by the August-September 2009 floods) were also analyzed.
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