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Title: 
Mitigating Preschool Children’s Barriers to Learning in Disadvantaged and Ethnically Diverse Districts (BaMi)
Location: 
Provinces of Kon Tum, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai
Timing: 
2017 - 2021
Budget: 
€ 4,142,000
Donor: 
Belgium
Sector: 
Early childhood education
Focus: 
Professional development of teachers (INSET) and school leaders; process-oriented child monitoring; equity
Challenge: 

Although Vietnam’s enrolment rates for early childhood education (ECE) are high, the country faces challenges to provide quality ECE.

This is particularly true for the provinces of Kon Tum, Quang Nam, and Quang Ngai in Central Vietnam, where there are big concentrations of people from poor backgrounds and ethnic minorities. These areas are also prone to natural disasters. Due to a policy and donor focus on accessibility for primary and secondary school children, insufficient attention is being given to ECE in these vulnerable areas.

A major concern in the ECE classroom in Vietnam, is the lack of well-being and involvement of young children. This hampers their full development and learning process. Although many ECE teachers have a degree, few can demonstrate the much needed practical skills and ECE specific pedagogies. This deficit is reinforced by school leaders that are not equipped with the knowledge or skills to organise effective professional development trajectories for teachers in those areas.

Goal: 

ECE teachers in disadvantaged and ethnically diverse districts of Kon Tum, Quang Nam, and Quang Ngai provinces in Central Vietnam have the competences to improve the quality of learning for all 3- to 5-year old children in ECE.

Partners: 
  • Ministry of Education and Training
    • The national Department of Teachers and Educational Administrators
    • The national Early Childhood Education Department
  • 3 provincial Departments of Education and Training 
  • Vietnam National Institute of Education Sciences
  • National College of Education Hanoi
  • National College of Education Ho Chi Minh
  • Hanoi National University of Education
  • Hue University of Education
  • Live and Learn
Approach: 

The BaMi project worked closely with 81 government officials to strengthen the professional development of teachers and school leaders in early childhood education (ECE) in three provinces with disadvantaged and ethnically diverse districts in Central Vietnam.

The project was built around three pillars:

  • Improving ECE teachers’ and school leaders’ knowledge, skills and instruments of process-oriented child monitoring.
  • Strengthening ECE teachers’ and school leaders’ knowledge, skills and instruments to address barriers to learning and participation, and ensure deep level learning among all children.
  • Enhancing needs-based/school-based teacher professional development (TPD) for ECE teachers on process-oriented child monitoring and addressing barriers to learning and participation.

The project contributed to the implementation of a sustainable strategy on process-oriented child monitoring and addressing barriers to learning and participation in ECE, particularly in disadvantaged and ethnically diverse regions.

Achievements of the BaMi project:

The provincial Departments of Education and Training of Kon Tum, Quang Nam, and Quang Ngai have:

  • provided TPD for 3,400 ECE teachers on process-oriented child monitoring; 
  • supported 570 school leaders in the implementation of TPD and in process-oriented child monitoring;
  • strengthened the capacity of above-mentioned teachers and school leaders to address barriers to learning (related to gender, environment, language, socio-cultural backgrounds, or other factors) and to establish rich learning environments for 62,000 ECE learners;
  • assisted the involved teachers and school leaders to establish school communities of reflective practitioners;
  • planned, communicated, documented, adjusted, and advocated for TPD on process-oriented child monitoring and addressing barriers to learning and participation.

The Ministry of Education and Training actively disseminates the approach of the BaMi project nationwide so other provinces can build on them. 

Potential for scaling:

  • The external endline evaluation concluded that "BaMi approaches, including process-oriented child monitoring (POM), gender-responsive learning through play, language-rich learning environments and TPD, will be integrated in the 2021-2022 school-year tasks of the provincial Departments of Education and Training (DOETs). It means that this new approach will be widely adopted in all preschools of the provinces, not just limited in target districts and schools. BaMi approaches, in this way, have been owned by provinces after the programme termination. All children in these provinces can access good quality educational environment as a result."
  • The POM approach has been scaled up via an additional fast-track trajectory in 6 additional non-target provinces following the request and under the leadership of the Early Childhood Education Department (ECED). A further spill-over into the pre-service system was generated by providing additional capacity development to staff of leading universities of education, further cementing the social sustainability.
  • VVOB has developed the POM e-course on Moodle and POM app. This will allow the POM approach to be disseminated and integrated into the pre-service and in-service system. Further funding is necessary to make this happen, as is a policy dialogue with MOET to integrate POM into Vietnam's Enhancing Teacher Education Program.
  • POM will be used as the foundation for the TALK project (2022-2027) which is an opportunity for POM to be further scaled to other provinces.

To reach its goals, VVOB in Vietnam develops the capacity of its education partners. VVOB uses capacity development trajectories that give partners maximal responsibility in the execution and management of their own change processes. This is done through technical assistance provided by the VVOB in Vietnam team, which includes both national and international educational and change management experts.