Catch-Up programme helps learners to read, write and count
UNICEF with support from the Hempel Foundation helps learners acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills
Meet Dyness Makesa, a grade 5 learner under the Catch-Up programme at Lubunda primary school in Mwense district of Luapula Province. The Catch-Up programme was introduced at her school in 2022 by the Ministry of Education with support from partners and has greatly contributed to supporting pupils through their learning path.
In October 2020, the Government of the Republic of Zambia, with the support from UNICEF and the Hempel Foundation, introduced a remedial learning programme called ‘Catch Up’ in Luapula province. This foundational learning programme which adopts ‘Teaching at the Right Level’ (TaRL) methodology, enables learners like Dyness to progress from one level to the next after attaining the competency level required in literacy and numeracy.
Dyness, who has been on Catch Up since fourth grade, has benefitted from the programme through her teachers who assist her in grasping numerical and literacy concepts and regular individual assessments to measure her progress. This is how the child friendly Catch-Up programme caters to every learner’s needs- ensuring no one is left behind.
“During Catch Up lessons, teachers give us a lot of playful activities that help me and my friends read, write and count. We listen to and read stories, we write, and we re-arrange or make sentences on the floor using the mind map,” says Dyness. “In grade 4, I was only able to read words, but I can now read stories and even help my friends to read.”
Regarding numeracy, the school has seen tremendous improvement in her performance, as previously she could only identify two-digit numbers. The Catch-up programme has helped her to improve in number recognition and mathematical operations as she can now read numbers correctly up to 4 digits.
“Using bundles, sticks, and play money has assisted me to read numbers correctly and solve problems in math using addition, subtraction and multiplication,” says Dyness
The remedial lessons are also helping Dyness improve her operational skills in division. The school reports that the Catch-Up programme has not only helped Dyness to improve in literacy and numeracy but has seen her improve in other learning areas too.
So far, 485 primary schools are implementing the Catch-Up programme in Luapula province with 75,278, learners (37,127 male and 38,151 female) reached through remedial lessons. Thanks to the Catch-Up programme, literacy levels in Luapula province have improved tremendously with 62 per cent of learners able to read more than a paragraph at the end of 2023 compared to 34 per cent at the beginning of the same school year. A positive trend has also been recorded for numeracy with the number of learners in the province who can add and subtract increasing from 23 per cent to 54 per cent for the 2023 academic year.
***END
