Gates Foundation

T-TEL partnered with the University of Cape Coast and Education Sub-Saharan Africa on a two-year study into Supported Teaching in School, the practicum through which student teachers in Years 3 and 4 of Ghana's Initial Teacher Education programme learn to teach foundational literacy and numeracy. Funded by the Gates Foundation, the study ran from September 2023 to December 2025.

Ghana had already reformed its teacher education system, building on a $34 million programme of support from the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office between 2015 and 2020. What hadn't been tested at scale was whether the practicum itself, the months student teachers spend actually teaching in classrooms under supervision, was preparing them well enough for the KG to Primary 3 age range specifically.

The study drew on a nationally representative sample across 30 Colleges of Education, involving over 2,700 student teachers and 384 mentors, producing the most comprehensive evidence base yet assembled on how this component of Ghana's B.Ed. programme prepares student teachers to deliver early-grade reading and numeracy instruction.

Download the full report