Effective education systems serve children and communities
Region: South America
The Quality Basic Education Reform Support project in Peru has helped the central and regional governments drive education decision making to local levels, thereby empowering communities to improve and maintain quality in their schools. The project provides technical assistance to governments that are working to scale up the active schools approach, which promotes teaching strategies — such as self-paced learning guides, small group work, learning corners and participation in school government — to improve student achievement. Support includes developing materials, creating demonstration schools and training coaches who provide teachers with professional development. Overall, the project has reached more than 2,000 teachers and 37,000 students in four regions. Schools that adopted the project’s detailed learning guides showed impressive reading gains: Between 2009 and 2011, second graders reaching mastery level in reading tripled from 6 percent to 19 percent, while the percentage of nonreaders decreased from 33 percent to 19 percent.
Funder: United States Agency for International Development
