Strengthening Teacher Accountability to Reach All Students (STARS)

Context and Issue

Ghana has seen progress in education, but learning outcomes remain poor, with many students lacking proficiency in English and mathematics. To address this, the government plans to increase targeted instruction in primary schools, focusing on students' individual knowledge levels rather than grade levels. A study will evaluate the impact of enhanced training and supervision on teacher performance and student success.

Solution

STARS, a randomized intervention, aims to assess the expansion of targeted instruction in primary schools across 20 districts in Ghana. The project has three main goals: firstly, to determine if targeted instruction enhances learning outcomes for upper primary students; secondly, to gauge the effectiveness of a management training initiative in promoting the use of targeted instruction within schools; and thirdly, to ascertain whether combining management training with targeted instruction further enhances student learning outcomes.

Impact

STARS led to improvements in at least two favorable teaching attributes. Initially, instructors showed an approximately 11 percentage point rise in their presence in the classroom throughout the lesson, marking a 15 percent surge compared to the control group's average of 72 percent. Additionally, there was a roughly 10 percentage point increase in teachers' interaction with students, reflecting a 16 percent enhancement over the control group's mean of 64 percent.

The STARS initiative presents a scalable and replicable model for improving teacher performance and student learning outcomes through targeted instruction and enhanced school management training. Its cost-effective design, which emphasizes teacher supervision, structured management training, and student-centered learning approaches, makes it highly adaptable for nationwide implementation in Ghana and replicable in other low-income regions facing similar educational challenges. The initiative’s alignment with government education priorities, its low infrastructure dependency, and district-level execution model support its scalability, while its focus on teacher accountability and instructional quality enhances replicability in diverse educational contexts. However, expanding and adapting the program requires overcoming challenges such as teacher resistance to new methodologies, sustained financial investment, and robust monitoring mechanisms to track learning improvements and instructional impact. Strengthening institutional support, integrating technology for supervision, and embedding targeted instruction into teacher training curricula will be essential for scaling STARS as a long-term education reform model that can significantly enhance foundational learning outcomes in developing regions.