Aula Global was created to address “learning poverty”, which means being unable to read and understand a short, age-appropriate text by age 10. In Colombia, 49% of children in the last grades of primary school present learning poverty, which leads to grade repetition, school dropouts, over-age and frustrated students with low self-esteem.
Aula Global implements semipersonalized tutoring sessions with students who are lagging behind in reading and mathematics, assigning them a tutor who provides focused and tailored attention and recognizes them as learning subjects. With their accompaniment, the tutor helps students to recognize their own capacities and abilities to achieve the objectives that are proposed. The tutorials make it easier for the student to rejoin the expanded classroom, with greater self-confidence.
Aula Global has an impact evaluation led by Harvard University and Vanderbilt University, carried out with 5000 students in 8 public schools which demonstrates positive impact of the intervention in improving basic skills.
The metacognitive process allows students to become aware of the knowledge acquired, generating greater self-confidence and improving their relationship with others. “One of the most important actions is the recovery of confidence (Interview Pedagogical Advisor Aula Global, 2017) “.
Aula Global was adopted by the Ministry of National Education of Colombia as a model to be replicated in the country, it has reached the 36 public schools with the highest level of school dropouts in the Colombian Pacific, facilitating that 25% of the participating students go from being in the “lowest” and “basic” levels of performance in math and language to “adequate” and “superior” levels. In Buenaventura 2021, school dropout for children who did not participate in the program was 3.4% and 1.6% for those who did. For a student who attends all tutoring sessions, an improvement of 0.38 SD was evidenced in basic learning. For their part, the girls who participated improved their performance in basic skills by 0.14 SD. The program reduced the repetition rate in primary school by 50%.
We expect to expand coverage to other territories, for more information please contact:
David Gironza - Director of the area of Education and Culture - Fundación Carvajal: david.gironza@fundacioncarvajal.org.co
