SEL Kernels in Uganda
In Uganda, VVOB and EASEL Lab support the Ministry of Education and Sports and Adjumani District Local Government in piloting a holistic approach to education that develops primary learners’ foundational literacy and numeracy skills and boosts social-emotional learning.
Uganda is one of the largest refugee-hosting countries in the world, with progressive education policies in place that allow refugee learners to study alongside their peers from the host communities. The COVID- 19 pandemic, as well as previous traumatizing experiences, have taken a high toll on the mental wellbeing of children in Uganda, especially among refugee learners. Assessments have shown that many are also lagging in their acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy.
The pilot provides remedial classes to more than 2,000 over-age-for-grade learners (i.e., aged 11- 19) in Primary Grades 3-5. Fifty-nine teachers from 28 schools across Adjumani district were trained to use a combination of contextualized SEL Kernels – ‘SEL Boosters’ – and literacy and numeracy activities from the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) methodology.
Local games, stories, and songs were sourced from teachers and district education officials and modified, with added social and emotional challenges, for use as SEL Boosters. To ensure these locally sourced activities would help learners develop the district’s priority social-emotional skills, three essential Kernels steps were included: an introduction wherein the teacher helps learners understand how doing the activity will build specific SEL skills; instructions to help learners understand how to do the activity; and a discussion after the activity to reflect on the skills they used and when they might be applicable throughout their day. Teachers received extensive training on the importance of adhering to these three steps, so that they can be intentional about developing learners’ SEL skills.
VVOB and Harvard EASEL are co-developing a formative assessment tool that teachers can use alongside TaRL literacy and numeracy assessments to gauge learners’ SEL skills quickly and easily so they can target their use of SEL boosters to meet students’ needs.
TaRL(+) @ PLAY for literacy, numeracy and social emotional skills