Kano Literacy and Maths Accelerator (KaLMA) – Improving foundational literacy and numeracy skills using the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach

Many pupils in Nigeria do not acquire foundational reading and Maths skills in the first few years of primary school, and without an opportunity to catch-up, they finish primary school without these basic skills. Rigorous evaluations have found that the Teaching at the Right Level approach, when well implemented, improves pupils’ learning outcomes, allowing pupils to quickly acquire foundational skills in middle-upper primary. In response to low levels of foundational learning in the upper primary grades, the Kano Literacy and Mathematics Accelerator (KaLMA) pilot was launched in October 2019 by the Kano State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Ministry of Education and Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, in collaboration with the British Council and Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa. The programme aimed to build foundational Maths, Hausa and English literacy skills through a government-led, scalable and sustainable accelerated learning model piloted in two full local government areas (LGAs), Dawakin Tofa and Wudil, in Kano State, reaching over 30,000 pupils. The results from the initial baseline of this programme, conducted in January 2020, confirmed the important need for foundational skills-focused programmes. In upper primary: only 7 percent of pupils could read a basic paragraph in Hausa; 3 percent were able to respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a simple oral question in English, and just 4 percent were able to solve a simple 2-digit by 2-digit subtraction problem. KaLMA is rooted in the Teaching at the Right Level evidence and approach. This accelerated learning approach involves assessing pupils on foundational skills and grouping them by learning level rather than age or grade level for two hours per day when they focus on foundational skills in reading and arithmetic through a combination of individual, group, and whole-class activities. This policy brief describes how the government-led accelerated learning programme which adopted the evidence-based Teaching at the Right Level approach for pupils in Primary 4 to 6 improved learning outcomes over a short period of time.