USAID Malawi NextGen

Donor: USAID • Timeframe: Aug. 2022 – February 2025

USAID Malawi Next Generation (NextGen) Early Grade Reading Activity

The Malawi NextGen activity solidified and built on earlier contributions to the implementation of Malawi’s National Reading Program (NRP) towards improving the delivery of high-quality early primary reading instruction in all Malawian primary schools. To achieve this goal, NextGen supported the Ministry of Education (MoE) in strengthening its national reading program. Utilizing a twin-track model, IDP supported interventions to ensure that the broader NextGen project applies an inclusion lens throughout all activities and materials to ensure that all Malawi learners benefit from its intervention while also conducting disability-targeted activities to also address this population’s diverse and unique needs. IDP’s technical work was led by IDP’s staff person, Augustine Kanyendula, who served as NextGen’s Senior All Children Learning Specialist.
A group of children are seated in a semi-circle in front of a teacher seated next to a chalkboard.
Photo Credit: Reading for All Malawi

Audio content: The teachers and their trainers sing, “We are teaching using UDL, universal design for learning! We are using TLMs, Universal design for learning! We are using pair-share, Universal design for learning!”

Visual content: Three women facilitators stand in front of a classroom of adult teacher trainees. They are holding mops made out of bamboo with water bottles affixed to the top to imitate standing microphones as they sing. Some of the teachers are dancing in place as they sing.

Context: Teachers and teacher trainers in Nathenje Zone, Lilongwe, Malawi, sing about using universal design for learning (UDL), teaching and learning materials (TLMs), and pair-share in early-grade reading instruction. Pair-share is a teaching strategy in which students work in pairs to answer questions from the teacher.