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Le soutien de la communauté est essentiel à un meilleur apprentissage
Par Maggie Farrand
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Toronto, Canada—Quand une mère en Jordanie emmène son enfant inscrire à la maternelle, elle est souvent refoulée et on lui dit d'attendre la première année. Avec des milliers de personnes en file d'attente et des inscriptions plafonnées à 25 étudiants par classe, c'est un phénomène régulier.
Au cours de la dernière décennie, La Jordanie a entrepris une réforme globale de l’éducation nationale. L'éducation de la petite enfance est au cœur de cette réforme., école maternelle particulièrement qualitative. Il y a quinze ans, il n'y avait que quelques jardins d'enfants publics. Aujourd'hui, il y en a plus que 1,000.
Mais quand même, ce n'est pas suffisant pour répondre à la demande. Les enfants en âge de maternelle sont systématiquement refusés, et sont mal préparés pour la première année.
C'est pourquoi Creative Associates International s'est associé au ministère de l'Éducation et à Save the Children pour lancer le package parent-enfant., une opportunité pour les mères de soutenir l'apprentissage et la préparation à l'école de leurs enfants à la maison. Cela fait partie de Creative Programme de soutien à la réforme de l'éducation, financé par les États-Unis. Agence pour le développement international (USAID).
Katherine Merseth, Directeur adjoint de Creative en Jordanie, a rejoint un panel d'experts créatifs présentant des moyens innovants d'impliquer les communautés dans la programmation lors d'une discussion intitulée « Engager la communauté pour soutenir la lecture » – dans le cadre du 2014 Société d'éducation comparée et internationale (CIES) Conférence tenu en mars 10 à 15 à Toronto. La conférence de cette année a accueilli des participants de plus de 130 pays.
Merseth told attendees that children not selected for kindergarten in Jordan can still have the kindergarten experience thanks to these Parent-Child Packages. Children can interact with trained teachers, meet other out-of-school kindergarteners and enjoy a renovated physical space and play with educational toys. Mothers learn alongside their children, and are given activities to do together at home.
“Mothers are the first and best teachers of every child,” said Merseth. “Our program promotes this role and involves mothers in the development of their children.”
Children benefiting from the Parent-Child Package program entered first grade better prepared – and received higher scores on the learning readiness assessment – than those who had no preparation. And as expected, children with a full year of kindergarten performed the best.
Since Parent-Child Packages began, the Ministry of Education has taken the program to 89 additional education centers, atteindre 2,500 children and mothers.
Calling on the community
Fellow panelist Tassew Zewdie, director of Creative’s USAID-funded Lire pour réussir programme, explained to attendees that Zambia’s meager learning environments and a lack of instructional materials are often blamed for low test scores. UN 2007 évaluation, Zewdie shared, found that only 28.6 percent of sixth graders could read at a basic level (SACMEQ).
But Zewdie has a different take. He identifies poor parental and community support as the culprit – and their engagement the key to improving those statistics.
Read to Succeed’s “whole school, professeur entier, whole child” approach to improve reading skills in the early grades, according to Zewdie, must also include serious community support.
“It’s a holistic approach,” he told the CIES audience, “with a deliberate decision to focus community and parental support on key factors affecting learning.”
Community support comes in three main areas: reading skill development; active engagement of learning; and local instruction materials.
Parents are encouraged to read to their children and assist with homework. School staff have established Reading Trees so children can practice reading in a designated space at school. Communities come together to build Village Reading Centers, a space reserved for reading and learning, and available to everyone.
The focus on community support even extends to companies operating in the area: private sector funding has provided Reading Tools in a Box – a set of reading materials and activity books – to 600 écoles.
The key to the program’s success, Zewdie believes, is having the endorsement and active participation from the community.
“People support most what they help to create," il a dit. “We have worked hard to build up community champions, who believe in this program and who are invested in its success.”
Revitalizing a culture of reading
Yemen’s strong history of learning and scholarly work is both a blessing and a curse, according to panelist Joy du Plessis, who presented on Creative’s early-grade reading program in Yemen.
When a national reading campaign took over Yemen’s TV, radio and street billboards in 2013, it was intended to revitalize that lost culture of reading. Its slogan read: “Let’s read because we are a reading nation.”
Du Plessis, former director of Creative’s program in Yemen, reminded the audience that the first word of the Quran is “read” – it’s inherent in Yemen’s culture, she said – but she followed with disappointing statistics: un 2010 assessment found that 27 percent of third graders could not read a single word and more than 60 percent of adults are illiterate.
Creative partnered with the Ministry of Education to launch a campaign that would educate Yemenis on the importance of education – and the role parents and communities have in supporting children’s reading.
The public service announcements included prominent appointed officials, including the Minister of Education, the former Human Rights Minister and the number one achieving student in grade 12 – a local celebrity.
“We highlighted Yemenis working on this issue,» dit du Plessis, “so people would see that this is Yemen’s project.”
In three months, it reached nearly 18 million people across Yemen.
Creative also addressed parents: members of local fathers’ councils and mothers’ councils were trained in key issues problematic in schools: attendance, timeliness and the importance of parents’ roles at home.
“We were careful in giving parents skills on reading, not just an orientation,” du Plessis said to the audience.
Thanks to the national campaign and training these parents received, more students are being read to at home, and more are reading aloud with parents or siblings.
Lentement, a culture of reading is taking form in Yemen.
That culture, said Mark Sweikhart, the panel moderator and Senior Associate at Creative, only happens with full community support.
“We have to aim for a change in attitudes among teachers, parents and the community," il a dit, where they come together to increase support for children’s reading – in and out of school.
“We want players to be involved and know their role," il a dit. “That’s when you see real progress.”
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