Teaching and Learning Initiative

Developing Guidance Notes and a Resource Pack on Teaching and Learning in Situations of Emergency, Chronic Crisis and Early Recovery

Initiative Advisory Group: INEE, Save the Children, UNICEF, UNESCO, CARE, World Vision, CERG

Teaching and Learning: The Issues

Since the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000, there has been increased attention to the educational needs of populations affected by conflict and disaster. However, while progress has been made in recent years to ensure that all children and youth affected by crisis have access to educational opportunities, the content of what is taught, the teaching methodologies and the evaluation of learning outcomes is often not adequately addressed. Quality and relevant education in times of crisis can be life saving and life sustaining, providing protection, psychosocial support, and a basis for social and economic development and peacebuilding. Helping communities, education authorities, and aid agencies collectively determine what quality and relevant education entails and how to monitor and evaluate key learning outcomes, is a huge challenge still facing many working in the field of education in emergencies.

Teaching and Learning: The Vision

It is essential that quality teaching and learning is at the core of emergency response education programming. The Guidance Notes and accompanying Resource Pack will identify realistic mechanisms, approaches and tools to help relief agencies, teacher colleges and education ministries address the complex issues surrounding curriculum assessment, development, monitoring and evaluation in contexts affected by crisis, in order to enable learners to develop core competencies in literacy, numeracy and life skills. The Guidance Notes will not be designed as a prescriptive solution or a blueprint response to the challenges of teaching and learning, but will instead provide a framework for planning an appropriate strategy for specific local contexts in ways that help to establish and institutionalise good practice and avoid negative consequences.

Building on the INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crisis and Early Reconstruction the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) is working with a wide range of partners to develop Guidance Notes and Resource Pack that will provide:

• Key principles of quality, relevant and inclusive teaching and learning practice
• Suggested issues to consider when planning and implementing quality education programmes
• A collation of resources including sample tools, teaching materials and case studies.

Guidance Notes for Teaching and Learning: The Process

The Guidance Notes and Research Pack are being developed through a consultative process involving input from an expert resource group, including virtual and face-to-face consultations and peer review. Education stakeholders including representatives from UN agencies, international and national NGOs, teacher organizations, conflict-affected communities and Ministries of Education have been engaged to ensure not only sound technical input, but also that the tool is practical and user-friendly.

In April 2009, the INEE Secretariat, along with other INEE Members and Teaching and Learning stakeholders, organised and facilitated a Global Consultation Working Session on the Draft INEE Guidance Notes and Resource Pack on numeracy, literacy and life skills curriculum assessment, development, monitoring and evaluation, bringing together leading stakeholders to strategize around the scope and content for this tool. The Guidance Notes were then refined through a series of peer reviews by over 60 technical experts who also suggested relevant resources to be vetted by a select group of technical experts in January 2010.

In addition to the technical expert contributions and review of the Guidance Notes, with support from its partners, INEE has held or supported numerous Consultative Workshops on Teaching and Learning attended by a diverse array of stakeholders from academics, donors, researchers, NGO practitioners, teachers and ministry officials. See below for more details on these workshops.

In 2010 the Guidance Notes and Resource Pack will undergo further field testing through focus groups in Colombia, Haiti and Iraq along with pilot implementations with targeted Education Clusters. Once finalized, an advocacy campaign will be launched in mid-2010 to raise awareness and encourage use of the Guidance Notes and Resource Pack among governments, operational agencies and donors.

Consultative Workshops

Consultative Workshops have been held in the following locations:

• Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. August 8, 2009. Hosted by the International Reading Association
• Boston, USA. September, 25 2009. Hosted by the Human Rights Education Association and the Harvard Graduate School of International Education.
• Geneva, Switzerland. October 17, 2009. Hosted by UNESCO
• Koboko, Uganda. October 19, 2009. Hosted by the Uganda Children's Writers and Illustrators Association
• Kampala, Uganda. October 23, 2009. Hosted by the Uganda Children's Writers and Illustrators Association
• Washington, D.C, USA. October 25, 2009. Hosted by the Brookings Center for Universal Educaiton.
• New York, USA. November 3, 2009. Hosted by UNICEF and the International Rescue Committee
• Phnom Penh, Cambodia. November 8, 2009. Hosted by Save the Children Norway.

To download the focus group facilitator's guide, click here.

For more information please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)