All together now

All over the world, children of grade 4, 23. The number of girls also different ages and grades are n northern Darfur, north-west decreases – in the top two grades, there I Sudan, the chief of the Tomorro pastoral are four times as many boys as girls. educated together. Far from community successfully lobbied the Ibrahim teaches grades 1 and 2 in the being backward, these systems government to create a mobile multigrade morning, striding back and forth across the school. hot scrub between the classrooms, setting may have much to teach us, Parents agreed to contribute to the work and leading recitation. In the says Angela Little salary of Ibrahim, the teacher, a man from afternoon he does the same with grades 3 the same tribe as the villagers. Together and 4, each in their respective classrooms. the chief and teacher encouraged parents Thousands of miles away, in , to send their children – boys and girls – to aMaheswari, a school principal, unlocks four-grade primary school. In 2003 the the door to the single-room school in the school consisted of four thorn bush huts in tea estate. The other teacher in the school, different parts of a dry dusty field, one for Siva, lives 25 miles away and arrives by each grade. bus, long after school has started. There There are 188 students, of whom only are 120 children enrolled in five grades, and 36 are girls, ranging in age from 6 to 16. Theon any school day about two-thirds attend. biggest class is grade 1, with 90 children. Each grade has its own space and Squeezed together in rows on the sand, blackboard. Maheswari moves from grade they occupy most of the ground space. to grade, giving instructions, opening Numbers diminish as the grades increase: textbooks and writing exercises on the grade 2 has 45 children; grade 3, 28; and blackboard for the upper grades.

32 | issue 4 winter 2006 | IOElife The extent of multigrade education

• In Burkina Faso, west Africa, in 2000, 36 were studying in mixed-year classes. • In the Republic of Ireland in 2001–02, per cent of schools and 20 per cent of • In New Brunswick, Canada, in 42 per cent of all primary school classes classes were multigrade; 18 per cent of 2003–04, 13.9 per cent of all classes in comprised two or more grades. school children were studying in elementary schools (kindergarten to • In Norway, in 2000, 35 per cent of all multigrade classes. grade 8) combined grades. primary schools were small schools • In England in 2000, 25.4 per cent of all • In France in 2000, 34 per cent of public using multigrade teaching. classes in primary education were schools had “combined” classes, and 4.5 • In in 1998, 78 per cent of all public classified as “mixed year”: two or more per cent were single-teacher schools. primary schools were multigrade, and curriculum grades were being taught by • In in 1996, 84 per cent of primary 41 per cent of multigrade schools had one teacher. A quarter of all learners schools had at most three teachers. only one teacher.

parts of the world learning and teaching setting not usually thought of by most as in multigrade classes is embraced as the needing or having multigrade classes. pedagogy of choice. A Ghanian colleague explores an NGO Based on original research conducted education initiative for out-of-school over the past six years in ten countries children in poor and remote settlements throughout the world, our book aims in northern which operates on to raise awareness of the extent and the principles of multigrade teaching. realities of multigrade classes and to He suggests that these principles hold explore the implications for educators and much promise for children who are policymakers, especially those committed not attending school. to the goals of Education for All. The introductory and concluding Much of the research has been chapters set out the multigrade undertaken by IOE PhD students and their challenge in the context of Education supervisors. For example, one researcher for All, synthesise what we know about offers an explanation of why low-attaining the processes and outcomes of learning pupils (especially boys) in the Turks and and teaching in multigrade settings and Caicos islands showed better progress in conclude with a set of questions for reading in multigrade schools than in proponents of Education for All. monograde settings. Multigrade settings are viewed by many Meanwhile the children in grades 1 to 3 Another author uncovers how teachers as second best or old-fashioned. But with wait quietly, patiently, books piled high in the Peruvian Amazon have developed a their emphasis on the learner, on learning on desks, unopened. range of strategies for coping with the how to learn and on the development of Maheswari, Siva and Ibrahim are just multigrade classroom, despite lack of social as well as cognitive skills, others three of the world’s multigrade teachers training, resources and support – and how view multigrade education as progressive who struggle to provide a basic quality the strategies used by children in their out- and good quality. education for millions of young learners. of-school learning can be usefully brought For millions of learners worldwide it is Curriculum developers generally create into the classroom. A third chapter explores not a matter of choice between multigrade teaching and learning materials on the the perceptions of teachers of the challenges and monograde. For them the choice is assumption that a teacher is responsible and opportunities presented by multigrade between a multigrade class or no class for one, not several, grades at once. classes in densely populated London, a at all. These settings call for multigrade Teacher educators rarely address the pedagogies that work. challenges of teaching in a multigrade setting with their trainees. Our new book, Education for All and Angela Little is professor of education and international development Multigrade Teaching (Springer 2006), in the School of Lifelong Education and International Development. addresses these challenges as well as the Education for All and Multigrade Teaching: Challenges and opportunities multigrade settings offer for opportunities, edited by Angela W Little (Springer, 2006), is available quality learning. from the IOE bookshop, retailers worldwide and springer.com In many countries multigrade classes [email protected] arise out of necessity and are regarded www.ioe.ac.uk/multigrade as second-class education. Yet in some

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