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Children in Mali during a school lesson. Image: Olivier Epron

University of Sussex researchers have linked up with research teams in six African countries to study how primary-school teachers can be helped to teach better reading and mathematics skills.

Dr Jo Westbrook, Dr Kwame Akyeampong and Dr John Pryor from the Centre for International Education in the School of Education and Social Work are leading the 'Teacher Preparation in Africa' project alongside Research Fellow Dr Kattie Lussier.

Funding for the 15-month project comes from a grant of over a million dollars from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The Sussex researchers are working with six in-country research teams in Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda to investigate what trainee teachers in teacher-training colleges know and understand about how young children learn to read and calculate.

They will also look at how new teachers actually teach reading and mathematics in primary schools and what teachers gain from further professional development training to develop their knowledge and practice.

Jo visited Uganda and Tanzania earlier this year to launch the research with the in-country teams and met with key stakeholders in the education sector who will be part of each country's advisory National Reference Group.

These preliminary interviews revealed some interesting first observations around reading in particular. She says: "Some wealthier children in urban areas in Uganda and Tanzania who attend English-medium schools may be reading Harry Potter. But most children learn to read in their mother tongue or in a mixture of mother tongue and English/Kiswahili which can be far more difficult. They read whatever few materials are available in the local language.

"There are several projects run by local NGOs to try to encourage reading for pleasure, such as community libraries in Uganda, or fundraising for school library books written in local languages that can borrowed by the children.

"However, although teachers appear to know about how to teach the basics in early reading skills, getting their students to read and to comprehend longer texts is more difficult."

Research findings will be shared with government planners, teacher education commissioners and curriculum developers in the participating countries to inform decisions about improving teachers' understanding of how to enhance the reading and mathematics experience of children in those countries.