Coombes, Andi

Ponta, Oriana

English

ZHAW digitalcollection

Essence of Learning: a 4-day training and ongoing mentorship for 
educators of Rohingya refugee children 
Organization 
Author 
Location 
Teacher Profile 
Topic 
American Institutes for Research (AIR) 
Andi Coombes, AIR, and Oriana Ponta, Zurich University of Applied Sciences 
Rohingya Camp, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh 
Host community teachers 
Teacher professional development 
DESCRIPTION OF CRISIS-SPECIFIC CHALLENGE 
Around 900,000 Rohingya refugees, approximately 60% 
of whom are children, currently live in settlements in 
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. UNICEF estimates that around 
300,000 children have access to education in close to 
5,000 learning facilities, leaving 16% of children ages 
3-14 and 81% of adolescents (ages 15-24) without 
access to education (ReliefWeb 2019). These gaps 
necessitate the development of a scalable approach to 
quality education. 
As the primary entity that provides education for 
Rohingya refugees, UNICEF has struggled to implement 
an approach that reaches all children and provides key 
elements of an education in emergencies approach, 
such as hygiene and nutrition-related services (UNICEF 
Evaluation Office 2018). As of the end of 2018, other 
challenges to education in Cox's Bazar included a lack 
of learning materials and teachers as weil as a lack of 
emphasis on socio-emotional activities that address 
psychosocial trauma and encourage resilience. 
In addition to an array of other organizations, Caritas 
aimed to help address these challenges, opening six 
Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) in Cox's Bazar shortly after 
the most recent influx of Rohingya refugees. The Caritas 
CFS provide educational activities that are grounded in 
socio-emotional learning and incorporate elements 
of hygiene, nutrition, and psychosocial support. The 
program aims to address the lack of resources by 
encouraging the use of recycled materials for learning, 
and the lack of teachers by using a training method, 
called Essence of Learning, designed to be accessible 
to educators who either lack formal education or have 
limited teaching experience. 
BRIEF OVERVIEW 
Essence of Learning (EoL) is a pedagogical approach 
developed by Caritas Switzerland that aims to provide 
psychosocial and educational support to children in 
crisis situations. Eol follows a routine offering targeted, 
sensorial activities which employ recycled materials 
that are accessible to children in their environment. 
The program enables educators to teach a typical 
curriculum through relaxation and play to support 
children as they recover from traumatic events and 
restore their ability to learn. 
The basic concepts of the Eol program are taught to 
educators in four days, which ensures a quick start-
up that focuses on addressing students' immediate 
needs in an emergency context. The teacher training 
- as implied in the name of the program - seeks 
to convey the essence of high-quality education 
through practical exercises that draw from the 
Steiner, Montessori and Reggio Emilia pedagogies. 
The training uses limited written materials to cater 
to an array of educator backgrounds, including those 
who lack formal education training. Educators are 
also supported through a mentorship component 
that begins immediately following training. Mentors 
observe and support educational activities two times 
a week, until the educator gains sufficient confidence 
in her ability to deliver the program (based on program 
monitoring indicators). At that point, mentors' visit 
frequency decreases, but peer-to-peer feedback 
continues throughout the program. 
Caritas Switzerland and Caritas Luxembourg 
partnered with Caritas Bangladesh in late 2017 to 
begin implementation in response to the Rohingya 
refugee crisis. Although Caritas Bangladesh has been 
implementing Eol in and around Dhaka since 2013, Eol 
implementation in the Rohingya settlements began 
in April 2018. Six Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) were 
constructed with UNHCR funding to serve the children 
of 1100 families up to 12 years old. Caritas works with 
Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), who supports psychosocial 
case management. 
84 
In the Rohingya settlements, Caritas offers Eol in 
morning and afternoon shifts. Each child attends the 
program for two sessions (three hours each) per week, 
ideally for one year. Educators in the CFS are from the 
hast community. Most educators in the first cohort 
had formal education training, but little classroom 
experience. Ongoing support for educators includes 
four reflection trainings throughout the cycle, bi-
weekly mentoring, and peer-exchange. Educators are 
also supported in the classroom by refugee assistants, 
who da not attend the full training. Finally, Caritas hosts 
sensitization workshops for parents and caregivers 
during the program, and provides healthy snacks for 
children. 
EVIDENCE AND OUTCOMES 
Data indicated another challenge to mentoring 
teacher practice: some mentors were distracting in 
the classroom du ring monitoring, using their authority 
to interrupt educators to correct them and in some 
cases, take over classroom practice. While educators 
unanimously stated that mentors play an important 
role in developing their educational skills and more 
generally in supporting their work in the classroom, 
it is key that they da not take the lead while the 
lesson is ongoing. The risk is that by doing so they 
might undermine educators' confidence as weil as the 
children confidence in their leadership. 
Community leaders and mothers said they noticed 
children creating toys from recycled materials or making 
drawings in the sand since they began attending Eol 
sessions, indicating that the methodology is enabling 
children to be creative outside the CFS environment. 
In addition, community leaders and parents positively 
valued the CFS community meetings - which bring 
together parents and the CFS committee - as a positive 
and sustainable approach to co-creation, acceptance, 
and engagement. For example, the meetings gave 
mothers an opportunity to voice requests, such as 
that their children have umbrellas and identification 
related to the CFS. The meetings similarly allowed 
parents to provide suggestions an topics of interest 
and ask questions about how to supplement children's 
learning at harne. 
LIMITATIONS, CHALLENGES, AND/OR 
LESSONS LEARNED 
AIR and Caritas collected qualitative data an the 
program throughout Bangladesh in July 2018. Findings 
from training observations, focus groups, and a post-
training survey of educators and mentors indicated 
that educators found the Eol training useful and feit 
equipped to work with children using the pedagogical 
approach after the 4-day training, which focuses an 
practical instruction. Results indicated that despite 
the need for more guidance an activities, practice, and 
feedback, the short training-accompanied by ongoing 
mentoring from a well-trained peer mentor - can 
provide educators with a toolkit to deliver education 
in emergency settings. These results were especially 
strong in locations around Dhaka, where educators 
had received a high-quality initial training and had 
been implementing for four years. 
Though a concise, high-level training that lays the 
The collected data shows that Eol trainers' and foundation for educator-led curriculum is ideal for 
mentors' practical experience in the classroom is 
a key success factor. When training and mentoring 
was performed by individuals with a management 
background rather than a teaching background, more 
gaps in the understanding of the methodology were 
reported by training participants. The continuous and 
high-quality mentorship is essential to the program 
and is especially effective when mentors can provide 
a range of development-appropriate activities and 
practical classroom strategies. Educators reported that 
it was challenging to continuously develop contextually 
appropriate materials and lessons after only recently 
learning the approach. Educators also requested 
written documentation to accompany the training and 
reference throughout the program. 
an emergency setting, emphasis an the ongoing 
investment in high-quality mentorship is essential for 
programme success. Though trained in Eol, mentors 
in Cox's Bazar had not taught Eol themselves, and had 
misunderstandings of classroom practice. In addition, 
the mentorship component in Cox's Bazar was seen as 
top-down as opposed to collaborative. The mentorship 
component is strongest in cases where mentors have 
previous classroom experience (as was the case in the 
learning centres in and around Dhaka) and an existing 
understanding of education methods. This finding 
is consistent with the literature an mentorship and 
classroom practice (e.g., Popova, Evans, & Arancibia 
2016). 
85 
Educators were overwhelmed by havingto continuously 
develop their own lessons; they requested more 
examples and practice as training tools, as weil as 
increased peer and mentor engagement and guidance. 
ldeally, educational activities should require only 
minimal preparation by the educators, in order not 
to further increase their workload. Educators also 
suggested various options for ongoing collaboration, 
which could include an online community group or 
other online sharing mechanism, educator meetings, 
or ongoing group mentorship meetings. Collaborating 
with other educators in UNICEF or other CFS as part 
of a comprehensive approach to learning (UNICEF 
Bangladesh 2019) could also enhance practice and 
enable the sharing of ideas central to Eol. 
Educators emphasized the need for a clear, structured 
approach to training that links Eol theory to the lessons 
and developmental stage. From this foundation, 
teachers could more effectively develop their own 
lessons and ensure teaching is appropriate based 
on the age of the children. Despite having seen the 
benefits of the training approach in non-emergency 
settings through teacher practice over time, an 
emergency setting necessitates more guidance that 
REFERENCES 
Caritas Switzerland. 2014. "Essence of Learning: An 
approach to foster and sustain children's 
ability to learn in times of crisis." Case Study 
from Gaza. https://staticl.squarespace.com/ 
static/583afl fb414fb5 b3977 b6f89/t/ 59 bd b9 
9332601ee818d16242/1505606037471/12 
PromisingPractices Caritas WEB.pdf 
ReliefWeb. 2019. "Cox's Bazar Education Seetor 
lnfographic." https://reliefweb.int/sites/ 
re I i efwe b. i nt/fi I es/reso u rces/ 1907 28 
edsector 5w ma.pdf 
Evans, David and Anna Popova. 2015. "What Really 
Works to lmprove Learning in Developing 
Countries? An Analysis of Divergent Findings in 
Systematic Reviews." Policy Research Working 
Paper 7203. Washington, DC: World Bank. 
INEE. 2016. "Psychosocial support and social and 
emotional learning for children and youth 
in emergency settings." Background paper. 
https://i nee.org/system/fi les/resou rces/1 N EE 
PSS-SEL Background Paper ENG v5.3.pdf 
enables educators to feel more equipped to implement 
the methods immediately post-training. Such written 
guidance could also facilitate the integration of an Eol 
training for educators in EiE generally, who may benefit 
from training on play-based education and using local 
materials to encourage children to translate learning 
outside the classroom. 
Finally, though the teaching methods support 
psychosocial development, the psychosocial support 
component should be substantially strengthened 
by specifically linking learning development to 
psychosocial targets, and by providing clear, evidence-
based steps for following up with children who need 
extra support, including children with disabilities. This 
finding is aligned with evidence gap on the effects of 
education programmes on psychosocial outcomes 
(INEE 2016). lnter-sectoral linkages and employing 
a specialized psychosocial support specialist in each 
location to run those elements of the programme 
would help maximize the effectiveness and legitimacy 
of this programme component. Formalizing the 
psychosocial support would also enable educators to 
focus on classroom activities and learning. 
Popova, Anna, David K. Evans, and Violeta Arancibia. 
2016. "Training teachers on the job: What 
works and how to measure it." The World Bank. 
http ://d ocu ments. wo rl d ba n k.o rg/cu rated/ 
en/122031474915232609/pdf /WPS7834.pdf 
UNICEF Evaluation Office. 2018. "Evaluation of 
UNICEF's Response to the Rohingya Refugee 
Crisis in Bangladesh." https://www.unicef.org/ 
evaldatabase/index 103442.html 
UNICEF Bangladesh. 2019. "Beyond survival: Rohingya 
refugee children in Bangladesh want to 
learn." UNICEF Advocacy Alert. Reliefweb. 
https ://rel iefweb. int/sites/reliefweb. i nt/fi les/ 
resou rces/U N0336024. pdf 
86 


Essence of learning : a 4-day training and ongoing mentorship for educators of Rohingya refugee children

Essence of Learning: a 4-day training and ongoing mentorship for educators of Rohingya refugee children Organization Author Location Teacher Profile Topic American Institutes for Research (AIR) Andi Coombes, AIR, and Oriana Ponta, Zurich University of Applied Sciences Rohingya Camp, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh Host community teachers Teacher professional development DESCRIPTION OF CRISIS-SPECIFIC CHALLENGE Around 900,000 Rohingya refugees, approximately 60% of whom are children, currently live in settlements in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. UNICEF estimates that around 300,000 children have access to education in close to 5,000 learning facilities, leaving 16% of children ages 3-14 and 81% of adolescents (ages 15-24) without access to education (ReliefWeb 2019). These gaps necessitate the development of a scalable approach to quality education. As the primary entity that provides education for Rohingya refugees, UNICEF has struggled to implement an approach that reaches all children and provides key elements of an education in emergencies approach, such as hygiene and nutrition-related services (UNICEF Evaluation Office 2018). As of the end of 2018, other challenges to education in Cox's Bazar included a lack of learning materials and teachers as weil as a lack of emphasis on socio-emotional activities that address psychosocial trauma and encourage resilience. In addition to an array of other organizations, Caritas aimed to help address these challenges, opening six Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) in Cox's Bazar shortly after the most recent influx of Rohingya refugees. The Caritas CFS provide educational activities that are grounded in socio-emotional learning and incorporate elements of hygiene, nutrition, and psychosocial support. The program aims to address the lack of resources by encouraging the use of recycled materials for learning, and the lack of teachers by using a training method, called Essence of Learning, designed to be accessible to educators who either lack formal education or have limited teaching experience. BRIEF OVERVIEW Essence of Learning (EoL) is a pedagogical approach developed by Caritas Switzerland that aims to provide psychosocial and educational support to children in crisis situations. Eol follows a routine offering targeted, sensorial activities which employ recycled materials that are accessible to children in their environment. The program enables educators to teach a typical curriculum through relaxation and play to support children as they recover from traumatic events and restore their ability to learn. The basic concepts of the Eol program are taught to educators in four days, which ensures a quick start-up that focuses on addressing students' immediate needs in an emergency context. The teacher training - as implied in the name of the program - seeks to convey the essence of high-quality education through practical exercises that draw from the Steiner, Montessori and Reggio Emilia pedagogies. The training uses limited written materials to cater to an array of educator backgrounds, including those who lack formal education training. Educators are also supported through a mentorship component that begins immediately following training. Mentors observe and support educational activities two times a week, until the educator gains sufficient confidence in her ability to deliver the program (based on program monitoring indicators). At that point, mentors' visit frequency decreases, but peer-to-peer feedback continues throughout the program. Caritas Switzerland and Caritas Luxembourg partnered with Caritas Bangladesh in late 2017 to begin implementation in response to the Rohingya refugee crisis. Although Caritas Bangladesh has been implementing Eol in and around Dhaka since 2013, Eol implementation in the Rohingya settlements began in April 2018. Six Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) were constructed with UNHCR funding to serve the children of 1100 families up to 12 years old. Caritas works with Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), who supports psychosocial case management. 84 In the Rohingya settlements, Caritas offers Eol in morning and afternoon shifts. Each child attends the program for two sessions (three hours each) per week, ideally for one year. Educators in the CFS are from the hast community. Most educators in the first cohort had formal education training, but little classroom experience. Ongoing support for educators includes four reflection trainings throughout the cycle, bi-weekly mentoring, and peer-exchange. Educators are also supported in the classroom by refugee assistants, who da not attend the full training. Finally, Caritas hosts sensitization workshops for parents and caregivers during the program, and provides healthy snacks for children. EVIDENCE AND OUTCOMES Data indicated another challenge to mentoring teacher practice: some mentors were distracting in the classroom du ring monitoring, using their authority to interrupt educators to correct them and in some cases, take over classroom practice. While educators unanimously stated that mentors play an important role in developing their educational skills and more generally in supporting their work in the classroom, it is key that they da not take the lead while the lesson is ongoing. The risk is that by doing so they might undermine educators' confidence as weil as the children confidence in their leadership. Community leaders and mothers said they noticed children creating toys from recycled materials or making drawings in the sand since they began attending Eol sessions, indicating that the methodology is enabling children to be creative outside the CFS environment. In addition, community leaders and parents positively valued the CFS community meetings - which bring together parents and the CFS committee - as a positive and sustainable approach to co-creation, acceptance, and engagement. For example, the meetings gave mothers an opportunity to voice requests, such as that their children have umbrellas and identification related to the CFS. The meetings similarly allowed parents to provide suggestions an topics of interest and ask questions about how to supplement children's learning at harne. LIMITATIONS, CHALLENGES, AND/OR LESSONS LEARNED AIR and Caritas collected qualitative data an the program throughout Bangladesh in July 2018. Findings from training observations, focus groups, and a post-training survey of educators and mentors indicated that educators found the Eol training useful and feit equipped to work with children using the pedagogical approach after the 4-day training, which focuses an practical instruction. Results indicated that despite the need for more guidance an activities, practice, and feedback, the short training-accompanied by ongoing mentoring from a well-trained peer mentor - can provide educators with a toolkit to deliver education in emergency settings. These results were especially strong in locations around Dhaka, where educators had received a high-quality initial training and had been implementing for four years. Though a concise, high-level training that lays the The collected data shows that Eol trainers' and foundation for educator-led curriculum is ideal for mentors' practical experience in the classroom is a key success factor. When training and mentoring was performed by individuals with a management background rather than a teaching background, more gaps in the understanding of the methodology were reported by training participants. The continuous and high-quality mentorship is essential to the program and is especially effective when mentors can provide a range of development-appropriate activities and practical classroom strategies. Educators reported that it was challenging to continuously develop contextually appropriate materials and lessons after only recently learning the approach. Educators also requested written documentation to accompany the training and reference throughout the program. an emergency setting, emphasis an the ongoing investment in high-quality mentorship is essential for programme success. Though trained in Eol, mentors in Cox's Bazar had not taught Eol themselves, and had misunderstandings of classroom practice. In addition, the mentorship component in Cox's Bazar was seen as top-down as opposed to collaborative. The mentorship component is strongest in cases where mentors have previous classroom experience (as was the case in the learning centres in and around Dhaka) and an existing understanding of education methods. This finding is consistent with the literature an mentorship and classroom practice (e.g., Popova, Evans, & Arancibia 2016). 85 Educators were overwhelmed by havingto continuously develop their own lessons; they requested more examples and practice as training tools, as weil as increased peer and mentor engagement and guidance. ldeally, educational activities should require only minimal preparation by the educators, in order not to further increase their workload. Educators also suggested various options for ongoing collaboration, which could include an online community group or other online sharing mechanism, educator meetings, or ongoing group mentorship meetings. Collaborating with other educators in UNICEF or other CFS as part of a comprehensive approach to learning (UNICEF Bangladesh 2019) could also enhance practice and enable the sharing of ideas central to Eol. Educators emphasized the need for a clear, structured approach to training that links Eol theory to the lessons and developmental stage. From this foundation, teachers could more effectively develop their own lessons and ensure teaching is appropriate based on the age of the children. Despite having seen the benefits of the training approach in non-emergency settings through teacher practice over time, an emergency setting necessitates more guidance that REFERENCES Caritas Switzerland. 2014. "Essence of Learning: An approach to foster and sustain children's ability to learn in times of crisis." Case Study from Gaza. https://staticl.squarespace.com/ static/583afl fb414fb5 b3977 b6f89/t/ 59 bd b9 9332601ee818d16242/1505606037471/12 PromisingPractices Caritas WEB.pdf ReliefWeb. 2019. "Cox's Bazar Education Seetor lnfographic." https://reliefweb.int/sites/ re I i efwe b. i nt/fi I es/reso u rces/ 1907 28 edsector 5w ma.pdf Evans, David and Anna Popova. 2015. "What Really Works to lmprove Learning in Developing Countries? An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews." Policy Research Working Paper 7203. Washington, DC: World Bank. INEE. 2016. "Psychosocial support and social and emotional learning for children and youth in emergency settings." Background paper. https://i nee.org/system/fi les/resou rces/1 N EE PSS-SEL Background Paper ENG v5.3.pdf enables educators to feel more equipped to implement the methods immediately post-training. Such written guidance could also facilitate the integration of an Eol training for educators in EiE generally, who may benefit from training on play-based education and using local materials to encourage children to translate learning outside the classroom. Finally, though the teaching methods support psychosocial development, the psychosocial support component should be substantially strengthened by specifically linking learning development to psychosocial targets, and by providing clear, evidence-based steps for following up with children who need extra support, including children with disabilities. This finding is aligned with evidence gap on the effects of education programmes on psychosocial outcomes (INEE 2016). lnter-sectoral linkages and employing a specialized psychosocial support specialist in each location to run those elements of the programme would help maximize the effectiveness and legitimacy of this programme component. Formalizing the psychosocial support would also enable educators to focus on classroom activities and learning. Popova, Anna, David K. Evans, and Violeta Arancibia. 2016. "Training teachers on the job: What works and how to measure it." The World Bank. http ://d ocu ments. wo rl d ba n k.o rg/cu rated/ en/122031474915232609/pdf /WPS7834.pdf UNICEF Evaluation Office. 2018. "Evaluation of UNICEF's Response to the Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Bangladesh." https://www.unicef.org/ evaldatabase/index 103442.html UNICEF Bangladesh. 2019. "Beyond survival: Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh want to learn." UNICEF Advocacy Alert. Reliefweb. https ://rel iefweb. int/sites/reliefweb. i nt/fi les/ resou rces/U N0336024. pdf 86 

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Essence of learning : a 4-day training and ongoing mentorship for educators of Rohingya refugee children

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