NIPUN_BHARAT_GUIDELINES_EN

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Annexure-III

TUSOME PROGRAM,
Government of Kenya’s National Literacy Program

• Planning to ensure availability of adequate number of Teachers in each school at
each grade from pre-primary to grade 3, especially in aspirational districts, SEZs and
undertaking extensive capacity building of teachers for implementing FLN in mission mode.

11.3 Role of NCERT:

Background: In 2012, Kenya was facing an education crisis with extremely poor foundational
literacy outcomes: less than 5 percent of first- and second-grade children met the
government’s literacy benchmarks and 80 percent of teachers reported no professional
development support the prior year. Following a successful pilot program (PRIMR), in 2015
the Government of Kenya in collaboration with USAID and DFID, launched Tusome to
improve literacy outcomes for children in grades 1, 2, and 3 over five years. The nation-wide
program reached over 7 million students in grades 1-3 and 70,000 teachers across nearly
23,000 primary schools and 1,500 low-cost private schools.

Program Outcomes

• The percentage of non-reader students in English Class 2 dropped from 38% to 12%
and that of students reading fluently increased from 12% to 47.2%

• Over 70,000 teachers received evidence-based professional development.

• Over 24 million learning materials were distributed to schools, resulting in a 1:1 pupil
to textbook ratio.

• On average, coaches made 90 observations over the school year, a massive increase
in system supervision/support and expectation setting for teachers.

Program Goals

• The goal of the program is to promote strong gains in reading in grades 1 and 2 in
both Kiswahili and English.

Instructional Design

• The program breaks 30 weeks into 3 phases: each phase focusing on a particular
component of literacy.

o Phase 1 (Week 1 to 6): Focus on Oral Language Development

o Phase II (Week 7 to 8): Transition to Reading and Writing

o Phase III (Week 9 to 30): Reading and Writing

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• Each phase has a core area of focus; however, it also simultaneously builds other
literacy skills in children.

• The program follows the balanced approach to literacy i.e., focuses on skills like
phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and meaning-based work like oral
language development and reading comprehension

Classroom Resources

Classroom Resources for Teachers: Teachers are given comprehensive teacher guides
with the following characteristics:

• Day wise lesson plans for 30 weeks, 5 lessons for each week (every 5th plan is a
revision plan)

• Time duration for each lesson across all components of literacy

• Snapshot of letter sounds and blends to be completed through the academic year.

• Stories and any other reference material mapped with the student workbook.

• Scripted plans for the initial months and structured plans for the latter part of the year

• Homework instruction at the end of every lesson; homework sheet is mapped to
student workbook.

Classroom Resources for Students

• Each student is given a Student Workbook.

• Homework books that include writing and handwriting practice, age-appropriate
stories, and engaging activities to support literacy development in both languages.

Formative Assessments:

• Strategies like thumbs up and down are embedded in the workbook at a lesson level
to quickly check if students have understood the concept.

• Questions to solve independently given at a daily level to practice in the “you-do”
phase of the lesson.

• Revision and remediation plans are given in the workbook at a weekly level.

Training Content and Delivery:

• Topics: Teacher training sessions develop teachers’ pedagogical skills in critical areas
of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, lesson
planning, and curriculum coverage).

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• Demonstration: Training is heavily based on demonstration and modelling of
activities followed by group practice; individual components of literacy, as well as the
full lessons, are modelled.

• Practice: For practice, Class 2 teachers who have been with Tusome are paired with
Class 1 teachers who are new to the program; Practice is done in turns followed by
scoring of each activity in the mastery card by the partner; scoring is based on mastery
checklist; feedback is provided by partner until mastery is achieved

• Technology: Video-based content is used to learn certain skills like the alphabetic
principle

• Homework: There is homework given at the end of every training day; reviewed the
following morning

• Cascade: Training is done in a cascaded form. Reinforcement of large-scale cascade
training is done by interspersing smaller, iterative localized support often at a cluster
level.

• Duration: The training is conducted for 3 days at the beginning of the year. There is a
1-day training in term 2 followed by a refresher workshop every subsequent year.

Teacher Support (Mentoring and Coaching)

• Curriculum Support Officers, administrators, and instructional coaches received
training based on practical classroom-based experiences.

• Head teachers are trained to provide instructional leadership for their schools while
managing the acquisition, utilization, and maintenance of the new learning materials.

• Ongoing Support to Teachers: Ongoing support provided through interactive text
messages that offer information and motivation to implement the lesson plans e.g.,
please remember to have children finger-point as they track the text

Monitoring

• Monitoring mechanisms include regular visits to schools, preparing structured
observations, and feedback. The CSOs are provided a tablet-based app that has the
following features:

• Classroom observation checklist to help coaches see if teachers were delivering
lessons as expected and then giving them the right pointers.

• Curriculum-aligned formative reading assessments which the coaches administer to a
few random students (such as timed 1 minute reading of passages) to inform teacher
feedback.

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• Provision to pull up a digitized version of the day’s lesson plan on the tablet to see how
well the teacher is following suggestions for reading and math instruction.

• The CSOs are required to produce a 2-page brief report after each classroom
observation, which is reviewed by senior management.

• The Head Teacher is also provided with an Observation Tool which is available both
on an app and in hard copy.

Data Systems:

• There is a centralized portal to upload classroom observation data and uncover
trends. The data is uploaded in real-time, making it available to local and national
education stakeholders. This helps create reading champions and fosters
accountability throughout the education system.

• The data allows MOE decision-makers to monitor progress and make informed
judgments and adjustments when necessary.

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Core Drafting Team of MoE and NCERT

@ MoE @ NCERT

Anita Karwal Prof. Sridhar Srivastava

Secretary, Department of School Education Director (I/C)
& Literacy, Govt. of India NCERT

Maneesh Garg Prof. Suniti Sanwal

Joint Secretary, Samagra Shiksha Head, DEE, NCERT
Department of School Education & Literacy
Govt. of India Prof. Anup Rajput

Rashi Sharma Head PD, NCERT

Director, Samagra Shiksha Prof. Indrani Bhaduri
Department of School Education & Literacy
Govt. of India ESD, NCERT

Purabi Pattanayak Prof. Ranjan arora

Chief Consultant, Samagra Shiksha Head, DTE, NCERT
Department of School Education & Literacy
Govt. of India Prof. Usha Sharma

Taramani Naorem DEE, NCERT

Chief Consultant, Samagra Shiksha Dr. Meenakshi Khar
Department of School Education & Literacy
Govt. of India DEL, NCERT

Dr. Romila Soni

DEE, NCERT

Dr. Ritu Chandra

DEE, NCERT

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