The teacher training program* of our partner organization in Uganda, Kimanya-Ngeyo Foundation for Science and Education, has been the object of a research project, the results of which were published in November 2020 in an academic article called Learning to Teach by Learning to Learn, authored by Nava Ashraf (LSE), Abhijit Banerjee (MIT) and Vesall Nourani (MIT).

This program, which is currently offered to primary school teachers of public and private schools, includes the study of a subset of the Preparation for Social Action (PSA) program, which five of our partner organizations implement to help youth and adults develop capabilities that enable them to become promoters the well-being of their communities. 

According to this research, the use of parts of the program in the context of teacher training is very beneficial at various levels: “The curriculum… trained teachers to teach students to learn like scientists: posing sharp questions, framing specific hypotheses, using evidence and data gathered from everyday life whenever possible.” As a result of the training, the pedagogy and environment of the classroom are transformed: “teachers adjust their pedagogy and relationships with students by teaching in a more engaging manner, by creating an environment in class in which students ask more questions, by being more aware of details of their students’ lives and by increasing the degree to which they learn from their colleagues.” 

All this had “dramatic effects on learning”: the pass rate in the national exam that determines progression from elementary to secondary school was raised from 51% to 75% in the schools where teachers had attended Kimanya-Ngeyo’s training. “Large improvements in performance” were identified “in all the fields that were featured in the training — English, Social Studies and Science.” In the area of science, in particular, students “demonstrate a higher aptitude for scientific thinking” and “[their] proficiency in designing experiments, articulating and analyzing hypotheses, measuring observations, and communicating results increase by 31%, 80%, 61% and 60% respectively over control school peers, all significant at conventional levels.” This “places the program in the top five percentile of all rigorously evaluated education interventions in terms of learning-adjusted years of schooling”. 

Know more about these impressive results by reading the entire paper here or by watching this webinar!

* Unity Foundation does not fund this particular line of action of Kimanya-Ngeyo Foundation.