Colombia's "Escuela Nueva" : an educational innovation

19197 A View from IATHR No. 9 COLOMBIA'S "ESCUELA NUEVA ": AN EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION by Eduardo Velez Human Resources Division Technical Department Latin American and Caribbean Region The World Bank May 1991 I[ "A View from LATHR" is a series of occasional flyers produced by the Human Resources Division of Latin America and the Caribbean Technical Department of the World Bank for the purpose of stimulating discussion among staff on key issues facing the sector. The views expressed here are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank. COLOMBIA'S "ESCUELA NUEVA": AN EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION The Escuela Nueva program in Colombia is widely recognized as a successful model of educational delivery where the objective is to improve the quality of schoolingY. In this "View from LATHR" we present a description of the program and review its progress to date. We argue that, although preliminary studies show the program to be successful, more extensive analysis should be conducted before firm conclusions are drawn regarding the program's success. What is Escuela Nueva? Program history.- The program had its origin in Recommendation No. 52 of the International Conference of Ministries of Education. This recommendation supported the establishment of Unitary Schools, in 1962, as a means of offering complete primary education in the poorest areas of developing countries?. The main characteristics of the Unitary School were the presence of a single teacher (multigrade teaching), an automatic promotion system, a system of active learning that enables children to advance at their own 1/ See E. Schiefelbein "Financing Education for Democracy in Latin America" Paper presented at the XVI LASA International Congress, Washington D. C., April, 1991. Also see Redefining Basic Education for Latin America. Lessons to be Drawn from the Colombian Escuela Nueva. Fundamentals of Educational Planning Series. IIEP, Paris, (forthcoming). 2/ For a complete description of the history and characteristics of the program see Clara Victoria Colbert de Arboleda "Universalizaci6n de la Primaria en Colombia. El Programa de Escuela Nueva" in La Educaci6n Rural en Colombia. Situaci6n, Experiencias v Perspectivas, edited by Fundaci6n para la Educaci6n Superior, FES, BogotA, 1987. 2 pace, educational materials that permit the teacher to work with several groups at once, provision of complete primary education when there is demand, and a teacher trained to guide students in their learning instead of simply transmitting information. Prior to this conference the Instituto Superior de Educaci6n Rural in Colombia had begun a program to train teachers for rural education school modality under UNESCO Project 1. The first Unitary School in Colombia begun operating in 1962 as a laboratory for teachers trained in this program. By the middle of the 1960s the program had expanded to 150 schools in one province. However, when an effort was made to expand the program to the rest of the country at the end of the 1960s, it was realized that several factors would hinder its successful implementation. Deficiencies existed in teacher training programs, the involvement of regional administrators, the application of the automatic promotion system, the relationship of the course content to the rural environment in which children lived, and in the definition of the role of the teacher as a community promoter. The program was consequently reorganized as the Escuela Nueva in 1976 and became an official program of the Ministry of Education (MOE). Since 1982 Escuela Nueva, funded partly by the World Bank (Credit 2192-CO), expanded to several provinces covering several thousand rural schools. By 1989, 17,948 schools were operating at the national level serving 800,000 students. In the next few years MOE anticipates expanding the Escuela Nueva program to cover all rural schools in the 3 country (approximately 41,000). This should raise the participation of rural, school-aged children from 20% to about 60%. Program objectives.- According to the program designers2' Escuela Nueva seeks to develop at the student level: (a) active and reflexive learning; (b) analytical and applied skills; (c) strong self-esteem; (d) attitudes favorable to cooperation and solidarity; (e) positive attitudes toward civic and democratic values; and (f) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher level, Escuela Nueva aims to develop: (a) a new disposition toward the role of the teacher as a guide and facilitator rather than instructor; (b) positive attitudes toward the new teaching methods, working in rural areas, and the administrative officials and technical counselors; (c) an active role as a community leader; (d) overall satisfaction with the program; and (e) the capacity to manage Escuela Nueva components (see below). At the level of the administrative agents, Escuela Nueva seeks to: (a) develop the role of the education administration as an institution providing orientation and guidance rather than control; (b) improve the working relationship of administrators and teachers (c) increase overall satisfaction with the program; and (d) improve the ability of administration to identify training needs and organize teacher training. Finally, at the community level, Escuela Nueva seeks to increase parental involvement in the school's daily life and in the solution of its problems. The school should be a cohesive force in the community. 3/ The information on which this description is based, is taken from Colbert de Arboleda, op. cit., and official documents. 4 Program components.- The basic assumption behind the design of the Escuela Nueva concept was that it would introduce innovations at the student level, in teacher training and in the administrative structure, while also improving coordination between the school and the community. This assumption shaped the objectives of the program which are translated into activities in four specific areas: teacher training and follow-up, curriculum development, administrative strategies, and community liaison. The training and follow-up components designed for teachers and administrators are conducted through a series of workshops where teachers learn how to manage the new educational materials, student guides, and the school library. The training and design of materials is done in a sequential way to allow teachers to gradually use what they learn. Training becomes a learning process about how to implement the program. The curriculum component consists of guides for students and manuals for teachers and supervisors. The student guides.' facilitate individual as well as group work. These guides are complementary to textbooks and are designed according to the approved national curriculum. The guides, made by the teachers during their training sessions, help the students adapt the national curriculum to regional and local needs, and encourages the practical application of material learned to community life. The curriculum also provides for the organization of a student government, study corners, and libraries. School government is 4/ Guides describe the objectives to be accomplished and the basic information and practical activities to reach them. They direct students in regard to the activities that must be followed. Each student receives her/his own guides from the Government at no cost. 5 one of the most innovative elements of Escuela Nueva. Students, teachers and parents are actively encouraged to participate in school activities. Study corners set up areas for dynamic activities focussing on different learning topics, and the library provides support not only to students but to the community as a whole; it becomes an information center for the community. The third component refers to efforts to streamline program administration at the regional level, including technical assistance and orientation from supervisors. The promotion system was made more flexible by redefining the automatic promotion of the Unitary School. A self-monitoring mechanism was introduced so that students could monitor their own attendance record and communicate to the teacher their concerns and problems through a suggestion box. Teachers control students' progress using a progress control book; once a student finishes an activity, s/he shows it to the teacher to get the authorization to start a new activity. Finally, the community component is designed to organize teachers, students, and parents to participate in school activities. Elements that are used to implement this component include a school surroundings map, family records, a county monograph and agricultural calendar. 6 Program Results Educational planners at the Ministry of Education claim that in rural areas, where only one or two teachers teach several grades, Escuela Nueva has been effective since school dropout decreased (by about 7%) after its implementation. It seems that in many rural and marginal urban areas, stiff promotion policies discourage students and parents. According to these officials, the combination of textbooks and learning guides helps the student to organize her/his own work and frees the teacher for helping more disadvantaged students. In addition, Escuela Nueva has increased community participation in educational activities and fostered democratic values through the School Government mechanism. Escuela Nueva has made learning not only a personal but a communal endeavor. The officials also posit that the continuing training teachers have received has enhanced learning. Program evaluation.- In 1987, after some years of implementation, an evaluation of Escuela Nueva was conducted to determine the cognitive achievement of third and fifth grade students in mathematics and Spanish, and also to assess improvements in self-esteem, creativity and civic behavior-'. This evaluation provides the best empirical analysis of the Escuela Nueva's progress. Table 1 shows the average scores obtained in different tests given to students in both Escuela Nueva and traditional schools. Although differences are not that large, Escuela Nueva third grade students performed significantly better in both subjects and Escuela Nueva fifth graders did significantly better in language achievement. Significant differences favoring Escuela Nueva students were also found in social self-esteem and civic 5/ See Rojas, Carlos, and Castillo, Zoraida, "Evaluaci6n del Programa Escuela Nueva en Colombia", Instituto SER de Investigaci6n, IFT-133, Processed, Bogoti, Enero de 1988. 7 behavior. However, no differences were found among students in terms of creativity, academic self-esteem, and, among fifth graders, in mathematics. Table 1. Average Test Scores by School Type Escuela Escuela Test Nueva Tradicional* Mathematics - Third grade 15.3 13.7** (7.3) (6.7) - Fifth grade 13.9 14.0 (6.2) (6.2) Spanish - Third grade 13.8 11.6** (5.2) (5.4) - Fifth grade 15.4 14.2** (5.1) (5.1) Creativity 60.0 61.8 (24.7) (25.8) Self-esteem - Academic 36.1 35.8 (5.4) (5.5) - Social 33.1 32.4** (4.8) (5.0) Civic behavior 15.4 14.8** (2.7) (2.5) * Escuela tradicional (traditional school) is used as a control group. ** Statistically significant at the .05 level. Standard deviations are shown in parentheses. Source: Rojas and Castillo, op.cit., 1988. The sample of Escuela Nueva schools included schools where the model had been well implemented. Hence, process variables were under control and should not affect the results. 8 Although the evaluation showed the Escuela Nueva to have a positive impact on some indicators of education quality, a multivariate analysis is necessary to reach a more solid conclusion. The evaluation study only reported mean tests results and this is insufficient in drawing firm conclusions about the impact of the program. Consequently, we fitted production functions to the original data for third graders, standardizing for factors that typically affect educational outcomes (see Table 2). Table 2. Explaining Educational Output Scores Among Third Graders Independent Civic Social Variable Math Spanish Behavior Self-esteem Escuela Nueva(1) 1.644* 2.249* .814* .567 Poor region -.351 -.744* -.623* .513 EN region(2) 1.804* -.394 -.472 .206 Books at home .982 .472 .024 .625 Male 1.243* -.261 -.410* .081 Age -.015 .036 .184* .203* Radio at home -.249 .462 -.013 -.359 TV at home -.137 .431 .490* .308 Repeater -.729 -.640* -.507* -1.194* Work .053 .009 -.318 .009 Homework help -.700 -.011 .172 .299 Constant term 16.365 15.134 13.210 31.294 R2 .033 .053 .054 .023 N 1673 1677 1544 1626 * Statistical significance at the 1 % level. (1) Dummy variable where Escuela Nueva is 2 and Escuela Tradicional is 1. (2) This is the region where EN first started and where it was more consolidated at the time of the evaluation. The results of this preliminary model show that, when controlling for socio- demographic characteristics, the effects of Escuela Nueva are slightly reduced. In the case 9 of social self-esteem it is reduced to non-significant levels. However, Escuela Nueva has a significant independent effect in terms of learning outcomes in mathematics and Spanish and civic behavior even after controlling for some characteristics that also influence these outcomes. For informative purposes, note that socioeconomic conditions in the provinces and some students characteristics, such as gender or age of a repeater, have a significant impact on education outcomes; in the case of age the effect is on behavioral rather than on academic outcomes. Finally, note that the explanatory capacity of the models is very low. In the same evaluation study, in spite of the fact that in 42% of the Escuela Nueva schools the student body government had not been organized, it was observed that these schools had a significantly higher level of participation measured by activities such as adult education (35.6% versus 28.1%), agricultural extension (35% versus 15.8%), athletic competitions (54.6% versus 42.5%), health campaigns (82.9% versus 56.7%), and community celebrations (88.5% versus 83.3%). In summary, evaluation studies and opinion from specialists suggest that Escuela Nueva has improved student achievement, self-esteem and civic behavior. It is necessary, however, for further analysis to be conducted, particularly regarding program costs and program effectiveness.- Despite the results shown in the tables and the reported 1/Just to point out an example of the eventual implication of cost, although Escuela Nueva teacher training is in multigrade teaching, and this may have cost savings implications, teachers training at the time of the study was calculated to be at least three times higher in Escuela Nueva. 10 improvement in dropout rates, caution should still be exercised in preaching the benefits of the program. Replicability.- In spite of its achievements, it took more than 15 years for Escuela Nueva to become a formal MOE program. Prior to 1982, Escuela Nueva was dependent on more than three offices within MOE. Today, even though Escuela Nueva has been institutionalized across the country, the support it receives in some of the provinces depends largely on the personal preferences of local administrators. The conservative character of the educational system in Colombia has been a difficult barrier in achieving current levels of implementation. The support received from local private organizations (National Federation of Coffee Growers, FES, and others) has proved essential for program development and implementation at pilot and local scale, but for a massive implementation at the national level their role will be less relevant. In spite of the support from international agencies (AID, IDB, UNICEF and The World Bank continue to support Escuela Nueva) we wonder what would happen during further expansion of this innovation. A major concern is that up to now, during the pilot implementation and the small scale operations, the highly motivated Escuela Nueva officials have been able to control the quality of its implementation. But, with the current massive expansion it may be more difficult to maintain the quality of the implementation. It is important to follow the current expansion as this will be the real test of the Escuela Nueva model in terms of its ability to provide teacher training, to deliver essential materials, and to follow up on school progress. Views from LATHR No. 1 "The Magnitude of Poverty in Latin America in the 1980s" September 28, 1990 No. 2 "Decentralization and Educational Bureaucracies" by Juan Prawda, November 15, 1990 No. 3 "What Should Social Funds Finance?: Porffolio Mix, Targeting, and Efficiency Criteria" by Margaret E. Grosh, December 1990 No. 4 "Financial Balance in Chile: The ISAPRES (Instituciones de Salud Previsional) Health Care System and the Public Sector" by Phillip Musgrove, January 15, 1991 No. 5 "Population, Health and Nutrition Issues in the Latin American and Caribbean Region and the Agenda for the 90's" by Oscar Echeverri, January 20, 1991 No. 6 "Population and Family Planning in the 1990's. Reconciling Macro and Micro Issues" by Bruce D. Carlson, February 25, 1991 No. 7 "The Feasibility of Student Loans in Latin America: A Simulation" by Samuel Carlson and Guozhong Xie, March 10, 1991 No. 8 "Transforming the Vicious Circle - The Costs and Savings of School Inefficiency in Mexico" by Samuel Carlson, April 1990 No. 9 "Colombia's Escuela Nueva: An Educational Innovation" by Eduardo Velez, May 1991