USAID Kenya Primary Literacy Program

Challenge

While education investments have successfully improved students’ foundational reading skills in Kenya, the COVID-19 pandemic erased learning gains achieved by the Government of Kenya (GOK) and development partners over the last seven years. Even before the pandemic, 47 percent of learners at the end of grade 2 were at the non-reader or beginning reader level for English and required immediate remediation support.

To address this challenge, EDC is implementing the USAID Kenya Primary Literacy Program (KPLP), which aims to improve education services and student learning outcomes in early literacy. The program places particular emphasis on improving classroom instruction and providing well-designed teaching and learning materials (TLMs).

Key Activities

• Conduct national teacher training, coaching, and mentoring to improve the delivery of classroom language and literacy instruction and to continuously assess student learning in all 23,300+ public primary schools across all 47 counties
• Provide targeted support to grade 3 learners who have not achieved the required levels of literacy
• Pilot and scale online synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning services, especially to learners in difficult-to-reach locations, such as areas affected by drought, flooding, and conflict
• Strengthen language and literacy education for learners with disabilities, particularly those who are visually and hearing impaired
• Expand the Ministry of Education (MOE) dashboard to collect and report relevant data on schools and learners
• Develop and implement low-cost continuous assessments to track and use student learning data
• Build the capacity of the MOE, relevant parastatal institutions, and private sector partners to produce and supply high-quality training materials and TLMs
• Provide community-based after-school remediation for struggling readers and home-based reading activities

Impact

• The USAID KPLP has trained 91,000+ grade 1–3 teachers and deputy heads of institutions on literacy instruction and inclusive practices to improve learning outcomes in early grade literacy.
• The program has trained 680+ teachers of learners with disabilities on the use of new learning materials.
• USAID KPLP has improved the MOE dashboard and the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) capability to reflect sample learners’ assessments and pedagogical aspects in English and in Kiswahili.
• The program has revised existing teacher TLMs to respond to the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party on Education of 2023.