Supporting and Researching Teacher Professional Development in Kakuma Refugee Camp - Kenya
Funders: IDEO.org (2016-17) and the International Affairs Global Investment Fund at Teachers College (2014-2015)
I am the Project Director for a new Teachers for Teachers Initiative in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya to support refugee and Kenyan teachers in their efforts to improve their own teaching practice and student learning in the camp.
Kakuma is marked by a booming and disproportionate number of youth as half of the total camp population is under 18. While enrollment at the primary level in Kakuma (73%) fares better than the global figures for refugee education (50%), only 2% of children are able to continue on to the secondary level. For those young people in school, the average teacher-student ratio is 1 to 103 and only 31% of the teachers are trained, which could entail as little as 1-3 days of training. Teachers struggle to meet the needs of children who have missed years of schooling and have experienced trauma. Eighty-percent of the teachers are refugees themselves.
Providing refugee teachers with meaningful and sustained support, strengthening a sense of professional identity, and further shaping a culture of better teacher support are all critical in this context. In order to achieve this, refugee and national teachers participating in the Teachers for Teachers initiative will be supported through a threefold program that focuses on: training, peer coaching and mobile mentoring.
Teachers for Teachers Core Team Members: Lauren Bowden, Jihae Cha, Sophia Collas, Danni Falk, Emily Richardson, and Shezleen Vellani.
Teachers for Teachers Research Assistants: Tehreem Asghar, Sarah French, Shenshen Hu, and Makala Skinner.
Kakuma is marked by a booming and disproportionate number of youth as half of the total camp population is under 18. While enrollment at the primary level in Kakuma (73%) fares better than the global figures for refugee education (50%), only 2% of children are able to continue on to the secondary level. For those young people in school, the average teacher-student ratio is 1 to 103 and only 31% of the teachers are trained, which could entail as little as 1-3 days of training. Teachers struggle to meet the needs of children who have missed years of schooling and have experienced trauma. Eighty-percent of the teachers are refugees themselves.
Providing refugee teachers with meaningful and sustained support, strengthening a sense of professional identity, and further shaping a culture of better teacher support are all critical in this context. In order to achieve this, refugee and national teachers participating in the Teachers for Teachers initiative will be supported through a threefold program that focuses on: training, peer coaching and mobile mentoring.
Teachers for Teachers Core Team Members: Lauren Bowden, Jihae Cha, Sophia Collas, Danni Falk, Emily Richardson, and Shezleen Vellani.
Teachers for Teachers Research Assistants: Tehreem Asghar, Sarah French, Shenshen Hu, and Makala Skinner.