Sustainable pedagogy in a low resource context: implications for educational equity

Speed Schools in Ethiopia is a large-scale complementary education intervention for out-of-school children covering the first three grades of the primary curriculum in ten months. Graduates are thus able enter government... [ view full abstract ]

Speed Schools in Ethiopia is a large-scale complementary education intervention for out-of-school children covering the first three grades of the primary curriculum in ten months. Graduates are thus able enter government primary schools at Grade 4 and to catch up from the years when they have not attended. This paper, based on qualitative research using videos, observations and interviews in Speed Schools describes the innovative pedagogy that has been developed with this setting, situating it with respect to on-going debates about the conceptualization, cultural appropriateness and practicability of learner centred pedagogies, performance and competence, formalism and flexibility. The research found these terms only partly useful in analysing the collective and critical approach of Speed School pedagogy which involves extensive work in collaborative groups who adopt multimodal and dialogic means of inquiry, practice and representation. It concluded that although the students involved were deliberately recruited from the demographic most likely to fail, the level of success at the end of the year was very high.

Moreover, drawing on further research in government schools that had received Speed Schools graduates, it suggests that this success is sustainable. Although the pedagogy within these schools was very different from that which they had experienced in the Speed School, within a system where only a very few students make good progress, Speed School graduates appear to be advantaged and to make more of what is available than those who had only experienced the government system. Whilst the Speed School approach seems to offer much for educational and social equity, paradoxically, the educational practice in the government schools means that at best what ensues is the possibility of social mobility only for some. The paper concludes by suggesting ways that this might be addressed by mobilizing the experience of the Speed Schools.