Regional: Strengthening Human Resources and Leadership for Education

Education / Education sector development

Major reforms are underway in the Philippines to modernize the education system. Despite increase in enrollment, recent studies show that teachers' content knowledge is weak, in-service teacher training is inadequate, and student learning remains poor. There is mismatch between school needs and teacher specialization and deployment, and inadequate professional development to deliver the K-12 curriculum. Other counties in Asia and the Pacific face similar problems of inadequate teacher availability and teacher professional development. Ministries of Education in different countries are partnering with CSOs to improve teaching and learning, through intensive school-based activities. Teach for All (TFA) is a global CSO network of 48 independent country organizations with a shared vision to expand educational opportunity. With a common approach of selecting young and high-performing graduates and placing them as teachers with intensive teacher training localized to the country context, the country organizations affiliated with TFA have contributed significantly to augmenting high quality teacher resources in poor and remote schools to improve teaching and learning outcomes.

Collaborative approached between Teach for the Philippines (TFP) and the Department of Education of the Philippines (DepEd) have helped to address teacher shortage and lack of capacities in government schools. The next phase of reforms in the Philippines calls for continued efforts to strengthen teacher capacities and performance. As governments in the region expand high-quality secondary education, the dearth of qualified teachers gets more acute in higher grades. Building on collaboration between CSOs and governments to equip teachers with professional development tools is critical to scale up quality improvement. Developing countries in Asia and the Pacific, such as Cambodia and Bangladesh also face problems of teacher quality and inadequate learning. Cambodia continues to face disparities in education attainment and lack of qualified teachers, particularly in secondary schools. Bangladesh faces considerable challenges in quality of learning and teachers lack adequate skills. The TA, while focusing largely in the Philippines, seeks to bring relevant lessons to other countries in Asia and the Pacific. The TA will document the experiences of TFA organizations in two countries (Bangladesh and Cambodia) in strengthening teacher professional development and in-school support to improve teaching and learning. Bangladesh and Cambodia exemplify the challenges faced by developing countries in improving the quality and performance of the teaching force. ADB has significant investments in nation-wide reform programs in school education in these countries for which such TA could offer complementary support. These countries also have active CSO partnerships in education which can be further informed by activities in this TA.

Teacher professional development for primary and junior secondary education in government schools enhanced

Leadership skills for basic education strengthened

Knowledge sharing, and dissemination facilitated

As at TA Concept Stage: Firm, 25 person-months, Firm selection (direct contracting)

Individuals, 7 person months

As at TA Concept Stage: Office equipment and supplies, request for quotations

Software and data management, request for quotations.