Improved Learning Outcomes in Primary Education (SABER)

World Education has been supporting Mozambican literacy and numeracy in the early grades through bilingual and monolingual education since 2012. In its Bilingual Expansion Strategy (2020-2029), the Government of Mozambique has made a renewed commitment to improving early grade literacy outcomes by expanding bilingual education.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Human Development’s (MINEDH) and 4 partners, World Education will implement the USAID-funded Improved Learning Outcomes in Primary Education (SABER) Program, a continuation of USAID’s bilingual education investment in Mozambique. These partners include NANA (Development Support Association), MEPT (Education for All Movement), and Associacao Progresso. 

SABER will improve student literacy and numeracy skills in target schools through high-quality bilingual instruction across 34 districts in Nampula, Zambezia, Cabo Delgado and Niassa. The SABER program intends to reach over 1.9 million learners, 3,000 schools, and 27,000 teachers over the life of the program. This will effectively expand bilingual education to the second cycle of primary school (grades 4-6). 

The program will:

• Build the Portuguese reading skills of upper primary grade students as they transition from learning to read and write in Mozambican languages to reading and writing in Portuguese.
• Provide effective remediation to improve literacy and numeracy achievement of grade 1-3 students impacted by COVID-19 school closures.
• Provide schools and communities with effective teaching and learning materials for grade 1-6 students to use in the classroom, in reading clubs, and at home.
• Provide coaching and supervision on best practices in reading and math instruction to teachers.
• Integrate evidence-based interactive instructional approaches proven to build student L1 and L2 reading skills into MINEDH pre- and in-service teacher training strategies.
• Develop and consistently apply user-friendly formative assessments to target students’ instructional needs.
• Develop sustainable approaches together with MINEDH and local partners to strengthen education policies, school administration, teaching, tools, and systems to improve school attendance.
• Improve data systems to track and report on teacher and student attendance.

SABER program outcomes will be supported by World Education’s Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) capabilities implementing large-scale data collections, monitoring approaches supporting Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) across the program cycle, building local MEL capacity, and developing digital platforms. At all levels of the program, World Education will integrate our partner MINEDH, from the planning phase to project execution, handing over final responsibility to the Mozambican government by SABER’s close.

USAID SABER is a collaboration of World Education, four local partners – Associação Progresso, Movimento de Educação para Todos (MEPT), Associação de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento (NANA), and international partner the Bluetree Group.