Improving pre-school quality in the West Bank through in-service teacher training

In order to enhance the quality of KG service provision in the private sector, the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE) developed and rolled out a KG Teacher Professional Diploma (henceforth “the Diploma”). The MOEHE partnered with the University of Delaware and six local universities (Al Azhar University, Al Quds University, Al Quds Open University, An-Najah University, Bethlehem University, and Hebron University). The Diploma is a comprehensive, one-year in-service professional development program targeting private KG teachers who lack formal training in ECCE and teach in grade 2 of kindergarten (KG2 teachers henceforth). It includes modules on child-centered pedagogy, early literacy, and numeracy, learning through play, evaluation and planning, and socio-emotional skills. The Diploma is delivered through weekly workshops delivered by local universities accompanied by coaching through the MOEHE’s KG supervisors. It was piloted in the 2022/23 school year with 359 KG2 teachers across the West Bank and Gaza. It was planned for randomized roll out in West Bank and Gaza in the 2023/24 school year. However, it had to be discontinued in Gaza due to the escalation of the conflict. The Diploma was offered to 245 KGs randomized into the roll-out group in the West Bank over the course of the 2023/24 school year.

2023-08-01

2024-05-31

The following primary outcomes were measured 7 months (two school semesters) after the intervention commenced:
(1) KG Teacher teaching practices
(2) KG Teacher beliefs about child development and what makes a good teacher
(3) Classroom environment
(4) Child cognition: measured using the IDELA direct assessment of child development
(5) Child social-emotional development: measured using the Strengths and Difficulties caregiver report instrument and social-emotional module of the IDELA direct assessment.

The following secondary outcomes were measured 7 months after the treatment commenced:
(1) KG Teacher mental health, well-being, professional self-efficacy
(2) Work climate for KG teachers
(3) Child home learning environment
(4) Parenting style
(5) Child-parent relationship
(6) Parental engagement with KG
(7) Parent beliefs about quality of KG

The objective of this study is to rigorously evaluate the KG Teacher Professional Diploma leveraging randomized assignment of the training across KGs. The randomization was done in the following way. Using administrative data, the MOEHE selected a random sample of 477 KGs that were eligible for the program and randomly assigned 245 to a treatment group and 232 to a control group. Assignment was stratified by training center (local university delivering the Diploma) and school size (based on the number of KG2 teachers in the school). All KG2 teachers in treatment KGs were invited to enrol in the professional development program in August 2023 and a subset of those teachers followed the Diploma curriculum over the course of the 2023/24 school year. KG2 teachers in the control group were asked if they would be interested in enrolling in a potential future cohort of the Diploma should the MOEHE continue to offer the program, but did not receive the Diploma training during the 2023/24 school year.

MOEHE contracted Mindset survey company to collect data necessary to evaluate the impacts of the Diploma. The evaluation sample included a random sample of 201 KGs from the treatment group and 199 KGs from the control group. Data collection took place at the end of the 2023/24 school year in April-June 2024 (two semesters after the start of the training).

Not available

Stratified randomization, clustered at the KG level, done in office by a computer

Kindergarten (KG)

Yes

400 KGs

There was some uncertainty over the number of classrooms and KG2 teachers in the treatment and control KGs pending teams arriving at the KGs to conduct surveys. The anticipated sample sizes were as follows: 850 -1,050 KG2 classrooms 850 – 1,050 KG2 teachers 2,550 -3,150 KG Students 2,550 -3,150 Caregiver (caregivers of KG students)

201 KGs in treatment group; 199 KGs in control group

Based on administrative data, we anticipated that 961 KG2 teachers would be found in the 400 study KGs. Sampling 3 children per KG2 teacher, would amount to 2883 study children. Assuming an intra-cluster correlation of 0.1, we estimated minimum detectable effects with power of 80% and a significance level of 5% of 0.133 SD for children’s developmental outcomes, without accounting for efficiency gains resulting from controlling for other covariates. Under similar assumptions, we estimated minimum detectable effects of 0.195 for teacher outcomes.