Pre-service Training

By: Vidya Putcha

Photo Courtesy of J. McConnico

Preschool — often the first time that children interact with the education system — can be a powerful opportunity to support children’s growth and development at a critical stage in life. In Ukraine, the government has acted on a strong commitment to preschool education by providing families with affordable opportunities through its public system of education. However, like many other countries, the system struggles to keep pace with demand. In 2014, for example, 90,000 children were waiting for places in public preschools, with 15,000 in Kyiv alone. Additionally, more attention is needed to improve the quality of preschool programs.

Finding ways to better position and support preschool teachers, who are at the core of the system, is crucial to addressing these challenges. In an effort to learn more about their role and provide recommendations for how to strengthen this workforce, Results for Development (R4D), the Ukrainian Step by Step Foundation and the Institute for Education Development recently carried out a study on preschool teachers in Ukraine. This research was published in a new report, Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce at Scale: Preschool Education in Ukraine, and surfaced critical insights which may be illuminating for policymakers in other countries looking to strengthen the roles of personnel working with young children and families:

1. Provide ample opportunities for hands-on learning early on in preschool teachers’ training.

While nearly all preschool teachers in Ukraine have completed some higher education in teaching, a number of preschool teachers we spoke with described having limited practical opportunities during their higher education. Higher education programs were described as being heavily lecture-based and focused on outdated approaches, with opportunities for student teaching often coming too late in the program and facilitated by teacher educators with very little teaching experience themselves. We also learned that it is difficult to sustain a healthy pipeline of preschool teacher candidates, as many graduates of teacher training colleges and universities do not go on to work in preschools. This may be a product of higher education institutions not effectively fostering a professional interest in preschool teaching among its students.

Hands-on learning can help prospective teachers understand how to apply new knowledge to their work in preschools. At the same time, these opportunities may allow teachers to reflect on their future careers and help to sustain their interest in the field.

2. Offer a range of in-service trainings and ensure that teachers have opportunities to connect and learn from one another.

Encouragingly, preschool teachers are able to receive in-service training every five years with funding from local budgets. We heard that teachers appreciate these opportunities and particularly enjoy being able to connect with and learn from peers. Teachers we spoke with advocated for more of these opportunities, which suggested to us that practical knowledge from peers may better address their professional needs than training courses. However, while these in-service training courses seem to be beneficial to teachers, there are concerns about the quality and variability of the trainings, in particular, that teachers have limited choice in offerings which often do not reflect varying needs and interests.

Many teachers are already poorly compensated so it is important that they have access to training and professional development opportunities that do not require their own personal financial investment. Since teachers may have varying experience and backgrounds, designing different types of training courses, giving teachers the freedom to choose those that best meet their needs, and facilitating peer learning opportunities, can help in ensuring the relevance of offerings.

3. Provide more targeted support on engaging with parents and identify ways in which feedback from parents can be incorporated in programs. 

Teachers and other school personnel frequently noted that communication with parents was their biggest challenge. Teachers felt that parents were not involved enough in their child’s development and ignored recommendations on how to support children at home through activities such as reading. At the same time, although many parents we spoke with lauded preschool teachers in public institutions for the work that they do despite low pay and heavy workloads, we learned that a growing number of families are enrolling their children in private preschools as they are drawn to the modern approaches that teachers in these school employ as well as the flexibility offered by these schools.

Efforts to better understand these dynamics could help in strengthening relationships and ensuring that families’ needs are being met in public institutions. Teachers also need support from senior teachers and leaders to help them better communicate with parents in order to ensure complementary home and school environments.

4. Hire and train auxiliary staff to offset challenging workloads and allow for more targeted support to children with special educational needs.

While teachers were strongly motivated by a desire to work with children, they described heavy workloads often resulting from large class sizes and paperwork. This was often further compounded by insufficient time and experience to provide individualized support to children, particularly those with special educational needs who were more frequently part of classrooms after the recent shift to inclusive education in the country. A new initiative to introduce the role of teacher assistants to support inclusive classrooms has been met with great enthusiasm and has potential to alleviate some of these challenges.

Efforts to deploy and mainstream auxiliary staff roles can help to unburden teachers and improve their ability to provide individualized support to children.

Empowering preschool teachers to thrive in their day-to-day interactions with young children can be challenging, given limited resources and the complexity of working with this population. While the insights above are only a small sample of how we can course correct, they offer ideas for how the early childhood workforce can be supported to make a lasting change in the lives of young children. The Early Childhood Workforce Initiative looks forward to supporting countries with knowledge and evidence as they embark on efforts to support these critical individuals. 

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World Teachers’ Day poses the opportunity to celebrate teachers and their important role in the lives of young children. Early years educators are a part of children’s lives at a critical time in their development. These professionals — through their day-to-day interactions — have the opportunity to transform a child’s developmental trajectory. Today we revisit a blog post by Vidya Putcha of Results for Development, which shares key insights for decision makers to strengthen the roles of early years teachers.

Preschool — often the first time that children interact with the education system — can be a powerful opportunity to support children’s growth and development at a critical stage in life. In Ukraine, the government has acted on a strong commitment to preschool education by providing families with affordable opportunities through its public system of education. However, like many other countries, the system struggles to keep pace with demand. In 2014, for example, 90,000 children were waiting for places in public preschools, with 15,000 in Kyiv alone. Additionally, more attention is needed to improve the quality of preschool programs.

Finding ways to better position and support preschool teachers, who are at the core of the system, is crucial to addressing these challenges. In an effort to learn more about their role and provide recommendations for how to strengthen this workforce, Results for Development (R4D), the Ukrainian Step by Step Foundation and the Institute for Education Development recently carried out a study on preschool teachers in Ukraine. This research was published in a new report, Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce at Scale: Preschool Education in Ukraine, and surfaced critical insights which may be illuminating for policymakers in other countries looking to strengthen the roles of personnel working with young children and families:

1. Provide ample opportunities for hands-on learning early on in preschool teachers’ training.

While nearly all preschool teachers in Ukraine have completed some higher education in teaching, a number of preschool teachers we spoke with described having limited practical opportunities during their higher education. Higher education programs were described as being heavily lecture-based and focused on outdated approaches, with opportunities for student teaching often coming too late in the program and facilitated by teacher educators with very little teaching experience themselves. We also learned that it is difficult to sustain a healthy pipeline of preschool teacher candidates, as many graduates of teacher training colleges and universities do not go on to work in preschools. This may be a product of higher education institutions not effectively fostering a professional interest in preschool teaching among its students.

Hands-on learning can help prospective teachers understand how to apply new knowledge to their work in preschools. At the same time, these opportunities may allow teachers to reflect on their future careers and help to sustain their interest in the field.

2. Offer a range of in-service trainings and ensure that teachers have opportunities to connect and learn from one another.

Encouragingly, preschool teachers are able to receive in-service training every five years with funding from local budgets. We heard that teachers appreciate these opportunities and particularly enjoy being able to connect with and learn from peers. Teachers we spoke with advocated for more of these opportunities, which suggested to us that practical knowledge from peers may better address their professional needs than training courses. However, while these in-service training courses seem to be beneficial to teachers, there are concerns about the quality and variability of the trainings, in particular, that teachers have limited choice in offerings which often do not reflect varying needs and interests.

Many teachers are already poorly compensated so it is important that they have access to training and professional development opportunities that do not require their own personal financial investment. Since teachers may have varying experience and backgrounds, designing different types of training courses, giving teachers the freedom to choose those that best meet their needs, and facilitating peer learning opportunities, can help in ensuring the relevance of offerings.

3. Provide more targeted support on engaging with parents and identify ways in which feedback from parents can be incorporated in programs. 

Teachers and other school personnel frequently noted that communication with parents was their biggest challenge. Teachers felt that parents were not involved enough in their child’s development and ignored recommendations on how to support children at home through activities such as reading. At the same time, although many parents we spoke with lauded preschool teachers in public institutions for the work that they do despite low pay and heavy workloads, we learned that a growing number of families are enrolling their children in private preschools as they are drawn to the modern approaches that teachers in these school employ as well as the flexibility offered by these schools.

Efforts to better understand these dynamics could help in strengthening relationships and ensuring that families’ needs are being met in public institutions. Teachers also need support from senior teachers and leaders to help them better communicate with parents in order to ensure complementary home and school environments.

4. Hire and train auxiliary staff to offset challenging workloads and allow for more targeted support to children with special educational needs.

While teachers were strongly motivated by a desire to work with children, they described heavy workloads often resulting from large class sizes and paperwork. This was often further compounded by insufficient time and experience to provide individualized support to children, particularly those with special educational needs who were more frequently part of classrooms after the recent shift to inclusive education in the country. A new initiative to introduce the role of teacher assistants to support inclusive classrooms has been met with great enthusiasm and has potential to alleviate some of these challenges.

Efforts to deploy and mainstream auxiliary staff roles can help to unburden teachers and improve their ability to provide individualized support to children.

Empowering preschool teachers to thrive in their day-to-day interactions with young children can be challenging, given limited resources and the complexity of working with this population. While the insights above are only a small sample of how we can course correct, they offer ideas for how the early childhood workforce can be supported to make a lasting change in the lives of young children. The Early Childhood Workforce Initiative looks forward to supporting countries with knowledge and evidence as they embark on efforts to support these critical individuals. 

Did you find this interesting? Sign-up for our newsletter to receive updates about new resources and join the conversation about the early childhood workforce on Twitter.

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the African Early Childhood Network (AfECN) Conference in Nairobi with my colleague Kavita Hatipoglu. The event was monumental, not just because it was the largest international conference on Early Childhood Development (ECD) to take place in Africa but also because it was my first work related travel with R4D. As someone with a growing interest in ECD, I was ecstatic to find out that I would be setting foot on African soil after a four-year hiatus and attending an event that would provide me with a crash course on ECD.

The beginning of the conference was nerve-wracking. I had just arrived in Nairobi and was extremely jet-lagged following many hours of travel. Upon entering the conference room, I was swallowed up by a crowd of over 800 people including government officials, researchers, funders, and many other experts in ECD from different corners of the world. Although initially intimidated at being surrounded by well-known experts in the field, my fear quickly dissipated as I was sucked into the buzz and excitement of the crowd and began conversing with the other participants.

Conference Highlights

One of the highlights from my first day was witnessing President Uhuru Kenyatta’s speech during the opening ceremony. Kenya’s ECD sector has undergone remarkable transformation in recent years and accessible, comprehensive, and equitable early childhood care and education is slowly become a reality for millions of young children. Recent accomplishments include an increase in the general enrollment in preschool from 69.4% in 2012 to 77.1% in 2017 and a 32.8% increase in the number of teachers trained in early childhood education during that same period. Despite these achievements, the President emphasized the need for more work and highlighted the challenges that Kenya still faces with high adult: child ratios, a lack of teaching resources, and low cross-sectoral collaboration. To tackle some of these issues, his administration plans to develop an integrated early childhood development policy to ensure the coordination of services across ministries for young children and families.

To emphasize this point, the President called on the wives of thirty-one county governors who were attending the conference and urged them to remind their husbands to prioritize ECD. This moment was important because it showed that ECD was a priority for high-ranking officials in the context of a decentralized system.

Following the opening ceremony, we were whisked away to various plenary and parallel sessions on topics that included the following:

Strengthening Systems for Children with Disabilities

As someone with a strong interest in supporting children with disabilities in low and middle-income countries, I was encouraged to find out that the conference featured multiple presentations on this subject area. Although over 53 million children under the age of five worldwide have a developmental disability, this group does not receive much attention in ECD discussions, especially in low and middle income countries. Children with special needs have a higher risk of experiencing marginalization, abuse, and behavioral and emotional problems and are less likely to be enrolled in formal pre-primary education programs due to the stigma that surrounds disabilities in many countries. Pre-primary teachers are often ill equipped to support these children as their pre-and in-service training focuses on traditional teaching methodologies that do not cater to diverse learning styles. This session explored how pre-service early childhood teacher education programs can be strengthened if they include mandatory courses on assisting children with disabilities and stressed the importance of providing members of the workforce who routinely support students with disabilities with in-service training on this topic. Providing the workforce with these trainings will not only reduce the stigma surrounding children with disabilities, but also create a pathway for these children to thrive later on in life. Although these sessions left me feeling disappointed at the extent to which children with disabilities have been ignored in ECD policy discussions, I left the session hopeful that programs could be bolstered to better support these children and their families.

Focus on the Early Learning Workforce

I found this session interesting because it highlighted the importance of putting children at the center of their learning experience and resonated with my work with the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative. Although research increasingly shows the benefits of play-based approaches, many African teachers primarily employ teacher-led approaches and encourage rote learning. To address this challenge, the Open Society Initiative in Southern Africa (OSISA) supported a “materials re-development” process in Lesotho and 10 other African countries from 2011 to 2017. These materials were re-developed using the resources developed and used in Eastern Europe by ISSA, co-host with R4D of the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative. This process involved the piloting of resource kits comprised of content modules, activity modules, facilitator guides, and children’s activity books in select classrooms. The activity books, in particular, were bright and colorful and featured pictures to appeal to young children. At the end of the piloting process, teachers stated that the kits not only fueled their students’ interest in learning, but also encouraged their own collaboration with students. This experience in Lesotho highlights how teachers can effectively use low-cost materials to create a positive environment that places children at the center of the learning process. Although play-based methodologies have not traditionally been employed in certain African pre-school settings, I am excited to see what lessons can be learned and achievements made as this practice becomes more widespread.

Wrapping up the last day

On the last day of the conference, I was both excited to be returning home to loved ones but also sad that the experience was almost over. As I walked out of the conference room to prepare for the long journey back, I paused in front of a showcase of a play area featured by Kidogo, a social enterprise that delivers early childhood care and education to children in East Africa. A little girl was seated in the middle of the showcase and drawing on a sheet of paper while her caregiver smiled and watched on. As I proceeded towards the exit, it dawned on me that by investing in the caregiver and providing her with the opportunity to flourish within the profession, we are ensuring that the little girl in the play area is able to grow into a healthy, productive, and well-rounded citizen of the world.

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