Despite explicit evidence on the existence of multigrade schools, official education policies in many developing and developed countries remain silent on this issue.
In South Africa, where three million children receive instruction in multigrade classrooms, government education policies make no mention of these schools.
The absence of multigrade education policies was one of many concerns highlighted at the Southern African Multigrade Education Conference, held in Paarl from 22 to 24 March 2010.
The conference, hosted by the CPUT Centre for Multigrade Education (CMGE) in association with the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Association for Development of Education Africa (ADEA), was attended by more than 100 local and international delegates.
The conference was a first of its kind and created an opportunity for researchers, government officials, activists and teachers to debate, share lessons learnt and plot a way forward for multigrade education.
In multigrade classrooms, which are common in rural areas, a teacher teaches several grades in one classroom. These teachers are not trained to facilitate multigrade classrooms, have little support from government and often no resources.
Virgilio Juvane, Education Adviser, Commonwealth Secretariat and Coordinator of the ADEA Working Group on the Teaching Profession, who was one of several keynote speakers, said nothing concrete is being done by governments to address the challenges these schools face.
“Educational management systems do not include data on multigrade schools. In most cases, educational policy makers and planners… are still largely unaware of the number of multigrade schools in their country.”
Juvane said the absence of policies, research and data makes is difficult to improve the planning and delivery of multigrade teaching.
CMGE Director Dr Jurie Joubert shared results of a baseline study on multigrade education in South Africa. The study revealed that there is an indifference towards rural people amongst government officials, resulting from a strong urban bias on the part of politicians and policy makers, while officials in most district offices are poorly informed and trained in multigrade pedagogies.
The study also revealed that teachers are not trained to teach in multigrade classrooms, nor is the curriculum conducive for these settings.
Dr Joubert said although multigrade education is “dismissed by policymakers as a second class option”, there is growing evidence from around the globe that well-supported multigrade techniques can result in positive education experiences.
In Columbia, the Escuela Nueva (new school) Foundation, has transformed local multigrade schools.
Head of the foundation, Vicky Colbert, who addressed delegates at the conference said: “Escuela Nueva is one of the longest bottom-up innovations that has been sustained and has impacted national policy.”
The programme promotes child-centred, participatory and cooperative learning as well as a relevant curriculum based on learners’ daily lives, flexible systems of promotion and a new role for the teacher as a facilitator of learning. The programme has been adopted as a national policy by the Columbian government.
A similar project, run by the Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources in India, has benefited 7.9 million children.
Reflecting on these successful examples and debates, delegates formulated a generic Multigrade Policy and rollout strategy at the conference. The policy provides guidelines for the implementation of multigrade teaching, training of teachers and other strategies which governments must put in place to ensure quality multigrade education.
It is envisioned that delegates will adapt the policy to suit their countries’ needs and lobby government for rollout.
By Candes Keating
Photographs: (top) Virgilio Juvane, Prof Jan den Akker, Gisela Siririka, Dr Jurie Joubert of the CMGE and Padmanabha Ra (bottom right) A multigrade classroom
Written by CPUT News
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