Social Responsibility through collaboration, innovation, and partnership in the Malawi National Reading Program

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The implementers of the National Reading Program (NRP) represent several local and international institutions that provide technical support to the Ministry of Education with funding from USAID for the adoption of a national-scale reading reform movement. This includes curricular reform, TLM provision including supplementary readers, Continuous Assessment and Remediation, and adaptations to approach for inclusiveness and to embrace the UDL. The Malawi NRP partners are ensuring social responsibility through collaboration, innovation, and feedback. The different implementing partners are not working in silos, but rather working as partners to ensure efficiency in producing high-quality deliverables while reducing duplication of efforts. This approach emphasizes shared resources and collaboration - which not only saves money of the US taxpayer and USAID client, but also pools resources (human and financial) for each involved institution and makes NRP implementation much more seamless for the Government of Malawi to manage/lead/engage with and, ultimately, fully own.
During this panel, each implementing partner will discuss the innovative ways they have addressed CoVid-19 concerns while also aligning with the partnership framework established for the NRP. A focus will be the supportive nature of the partners’ collaboration in order to ensure best practices while seamlessly uniting with both USAID and the Ministry of Education (MoE) in Malawi for national-scale implementation of a reading program, as well as for COVID-19 adaptations.
This contribution will be of interest to development organizations and donor partners who are working to improve educational outcomes at scale as we are in Malawi. Improving learning at scale is a slow and complex endeavor that benefits from multiple partners working collaboratively with shared resources towards their common goal.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Adrienne Barnes, Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University

Individual Presentations

• The Collaborative Nature of the Malawi National Reading Program - Barbara Greenwood, Chief of Party

• Developing a Mobile App to streamline and modernize data collection in Malawi - Mphatso Sambo, Abt Associates

• Ensuring Education for All in Malawi - Augustine Kanyendula, Juarez & Associates

• Establishing Benchmarks Through Policy Linking - Candace Debnam, School-to-School International

Discussant

• Adrienne Barnes, Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University