Project News

A workshop to foster a shared understanding on "What is a good lesson?" and "What is a good teacher?" in Mozambique was conducted on 27th and 28th November, 2017.

The workshop was attended by directors and technicians from various departments of Ministry of Education and Human Development (MINEDH), who are involved in curriculum and textbook development, teacher training, and primary education.

On the first day, a Japanese expert presented initial findings from the field survey conducted in September, 2017 to collect data on students' learning achievement after using the new textbooks in mathematics. Although pilot IFP students, who use the new textbook, performed better in some parts of the test, the control IFP students, who do not use the new textbook, outperformed the pilot IFP students in some parts as well. This may be caused by the problems with the quality of the new textbook or the way the textbook is being taught. As an example, the facilitator then showed a video of an IFP lesson to discuss issues of how the lesson was being taught with the participants. They found that the teacher spent most of the lesson lecturing and writing what was written in the textbook on the board, and the students spent the class copying the board work into their notebooks during the lesson. Through the workshop, the idea that students need more time to practice what they are learning in order to acquire knowledge was shared with the participants. Afterwards, various quantitative and qualitative methods for conducting lesson analysis were introduced. By using those methods, the participants analysed videos of IFP Mathematics and Natural Sciences lessons and also Japanese primary school Mathematics and Natural Sciences lessons.

Through the analyses and comparison of the lessons in Mozambique and Japan, the participants identified issues in IFP lessons as well as potential solutions. We will think about how to use these issues as criteria for monitoring the quality of IFP lessons in the future.

Participants conducting lesson analysis

Discussing issues of the lesson