Chapter 1 - Multi-grade teaching: Concept and status

The persistence of the multi-grade reality towards the close of the twentieth century
The gap between the multi-grade reality, teacher education and curriculum assumptions

Multi-grade teaching refers to the teaching of students of different ages, grades and abilities in the same group. It is referred to variously in the literature as 'multilevel', 'multiple class', 'composite class', 'vertical group', 'family class', and, in the case of one-teacher schools, 'unitary schools'. It is to be distinguished from 'mono-grade' teaching in which students within the same grade are assumed to be more similar in terms of age and ability. Substantial variation in ability within a mono-grade class often leads to "mixed-ability" teaching. Multi-grade teaching should also be distinguished from "multi-age-within-grade" teaching which occurs when there are wide variations in age within the same grade. This is common in developing countries, where the age of entry to school varies and where grade repetition is common. However, in North America, where age and grade are more congruent, the terms "multi-age" and "multi-grade" are often used synonymously.

Several writers have pointed out that the first state-supported elementary schools in North America and Europe were un-graded. The school often consisted of a single room in which one teacher taught basic literacy and numeracy to children from six to fifteen years of age. In the US the "death knell of the one room school was sounded" after a visit to Prussia by Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, in 1843.

the first element of superiority in a Prussian school...consists in the proper classification of scholars. In all places where the numbers are sufficiently large to allow it, the children are divided according to ages and attainments, and a single teacher has the charge of only a single class... There is no obstacle whatever... to the introduction at once of this mode of dividing and classifying scholars in all our large towns (Mann quoted in Pratt 1986)

Urban education administrators in the US were soon to recommend that schools be divided on the lines of age and grade, a development which was consistent with the division of labour in industry. The "principle of the division of labour holds good in schools, as in mechanical industry" (Bruck quoted in Pratt 1986). The mono-grade model was to become a universal ideal in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and came to dominate the basis of school, class and curriculum organisation used by central authorities.

The persistence of the multi-grade reality towards the close of the twentieth century

Yet despite the ideal, the multi-grade reality has characterised hundreds of thousands of schools throughout the twentieth century and will continue to do so well into the twenty first. Although information about the extent of multi-grade teaching tends not to be collected on a regular basis, 1959 data were collected by UNESCO's International Bureau of Education (Table 1). Table 1 indicates the large number and proportion of teachers who were teaching in one-teacher schools in the late 1950s - some 2040% in countries of South and Central America, 16% in India, 25% in Turkey and 15% in the USSR. The percentage of teachers teaching in one-teacher schools in some of the European countries was also extremely high - 47% in Spain, 23% in Luxembourg, 20% in France, 10% in Switzerland. Figures in the US and UK were lower - 2.9% in the USA, 3.6% in Scotland, 2.3% in Northern Ireland and 0.7% in England and Wales (UNESCO/IBE 1961).

Comparable data for the late 1980s early 1990s are not available. Data on multi-grade teachers and schools do not appear to be collected systematically by national and international agencies. Table 2 synthesises available information from a wide variety of sources on the current status of multi-grade teaching. It expresses the incidence of multi-grade teaching at the primary school level in different countries in the years for which the most recent data are available. The several columns in Table 2 reflect the non-standard nature of available data. In some countries data on the number and percentage of one and two teacher schools are available. In others only the number and or the percentage of schools which have multi-grade classes are available; or the number of classes within a system which are multi-grade; or the number of teachers per school; or the percentage of teachers who teach multi-grade; or the percentage of students who study in multi-grade classes.

Table 2 suggests that in 1986 India had over 300,000 one or two teacher schools, representing more than 60% of all schools. In Sri Lanka the percentage is lower. However the seven hundred schools in Sri Lanka which have either one or two teachers are located in the most difficult environments in a country which has achieved near universal enrolment in primary school. In Malaysia too the multi-grade schools are located in those areas which are disadvantaged in several ways Malay and Chinese schools in small villages and settlements and in the remote, secluded areas of Sabah; Tamil schools in rubber estates and the aboriginal schools in the interior and remote areas of Peninsular Malaysia.

Table 1: Numbers of teachers and students in primary education and in one-teacher schools, by country c. 1959

		Teachers			Pupils
		Primary Education	One-Teacher Schools	%	Primary Education	One-Teacher Schools	%
Afghanistan		2,818	606	21.8	123,117	26,761	21.7
Albania		6,110	1,194	23	174,332	37,400	21
Australia		36,724	3,262	8.9	1,203,949	71,938	6
Austria		16,401	967	6.8	611,710	24,905	4.9
Belgium1		38,410	2,279	6.9	965,660	50,214	6.3
Brazil1		207,870	80,866	38.9	1,376,246	518,492	37.7
Bulgaria		22,011	1,132	6.1	1,000,000	26,000	2.6
Byelorussia		31,399	1,663	4.9	702,617	-	-
Chile		21,468	1,141	5.3	726,763	62,676	7.2
Colombia		38,061	13,303	30	1,493,123	-	-
Denmark		14,146	673	4.8	357,334	21,636	6
Ecuador		12,611	2,941	23.3	629,224	-	-
Ethiopia		3,100	129	4.2	141,777	9,144	6.5
Finland		22,769	763	3	624,196	-	-
France		218,488	43,490	19.9	6,840,000	1,017,400	17.4
German Federal Republic		130,037	8,411	6.6	4,868,786	280,741	6.8
Honduras		6,109	2,196	36.9	190,261	-	-
Hungary		56,449	171	0.3	1,314,432	3,428	0.3
India		710,139	116,263	16.4	26,964,808	4,221,601	16.3
Iran		27,716	3,627	13	978,810	133,161	13
Ireland		14,233	766	5.3	605,363	-	-
Italy		184,724	11,617	6.2	4,704,168	210,616	4.6
Japan1		372,566	666	0.2	13,423,482	6,674	0.1
Jordan		4,073	261	6.4	148,698	8,673	6.8
Luxembourg		1,098	260	22.8	28,014	-	-
Malaya		37,696	496	1.3	1,072,662	16,026	1.4
Netherlands		42,104	76	0.2	1,476,492	1,200	0.1
New Zealand1		13,160	602	3.8	418,888	-	-
Nicaragua		3,770	1,487	39	162,783	62,887	41
Norway		16,081	468	3	439,000	4,144	0.9
Panama		4,833	479	9	110,330	-	-
Poland		140,311	4,631	3.2	4,674,226	128,408	2.8
Spain		93,924	44,062	47	3,698,191	-	-
Sweden		36,218	173	0.6	837,029	2,406	0.3
Switzerland³		6,803	669	9.7	221,697	14,676	6.6
	Bern	3,666	139	3.8	104,000	2,660	2.6
	Fribourg	678	136	20	24,332	4,218	17
	Grisons	696	111	18.4	18,074	-	-
	St. Gallen	1,097	69	6.4	40,292	1,602	4
	Ticino	707	203	29	17,928	3,649	21
	Vaud	666	122	18	36,146	2,446	7
Thailand		96,981	893	0.9	3,434,207	41,766	1.2
Tunisia		6,166	3	0.1	361,632	66	0.1
Turkey		61,148	12,946	26	-	-	-
Union of South Africa		14,768	408	2.8	440,666	4,100	1
U.S.S.R.		162,400	22,300	14.6	2,949,600	442,000	14.9
United Arab Republic		73,394	1,126	1.6	2,710,067	39,874	1.6
United Kingdom²		167,001	1,766	1.1	4,767,888	31,970	0.7
	England and Wales	132,424	970	0.7	3,969,319	17,329	0.4
	Scotland	18,300	660	3.6	603,630	11,700	1.9
	Northern Ireland	6,277	146	2.3	195,066	2,941	1.6
United States		814,967	23,696	2.9	23,414,947	400,000	1.7
Uruguay		7,783	739	9.6	261,690	-	-
Vietnam		17,819	1,169	6.6	1,001,767	76,679	7.6

¹ Public and private schools.

² Total of the figures given for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

³ Total of the figures given for the Cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Grisons, St Gallen, Ticino and Vaud.

Source: UNESCO/IBE (1961)

Table 2: Incidence of multi-grade schools, teachers and students c. 1990

Country	Year	Schools				Teachers		Students
		1 teacher school	2 teacher schools	with MG classes	classes with MG	per school	who teach MG	in MG classes	in 1-2 teacher schools
India	1986	152848 (29%)	168423 (32%)
Pakistan	1989					2.3 Rur 1.9
Sri Lanka	1991	222 (2%)	471 (5%)
China	1986			420.000	(12%)
Korea	198?			(2%)
Malaysia	198?			950
Philippines	198?				14923 (8%)
Mexico	198?	(22%)
Peru	1988	(39%)
Fiji	c1990			(50%)			(25%)	(28%)
Zambia	c1984	(26%)
Solomon Islands	c1990			(25%)
Kiribati	c1990						(60%)	(50%)
Tuvalu	c1990			(91%)
Marshall Islands	c1990			(90%)			(60%)
Cook Islands	c1990			(50%)
Western Samoa	c1990						(10%)	(8%)
Vanuatu	c1990							(28%)
Australia Northern Terr.	1988			(40%)
Sweden	1987/8			439 (35%)
US	1990/1	(1%)
France	1987/8				61525 (22%)
England	c 1990			1151 with <50 students
Wales	1976	17 (0.9%)	247 (14%)	583 (30%)
Scotland	1981								(2.5%)

Sources: NCERT 1992. France 1989. Tovar 1989. Welsh Office 1978. Scottish Education Dept 1981. GOP 1993. Collingwood 1991. Sri Lanka 1993. APEID 1989. Abhayadewa 1989. Veenman et al 1989. Pratt 1986. Kent (nd). Thomas and Shaw 1992. Malmros and Sahlin 1992. US 1992.

Table 2 also suggests that in Peru the percentage of schools which were one-teacher schools in 1988 was almost 40%. These schools are located in rural areas, predominantly in the Andean and Amazon regions of the country. In Zambia too the figure is high, at 26% in the mid 1980s. In Pakistan the average number of primary teachers per school was 2.3 in 1989 across the country, and only 1.9 in rural areas where the primary cycle spans five years. Multi-grade classes are common in the primary schools of the Pacific Islands. They are also common in the rural areas of industrialised countries. In the Northern territories of Australia for example 40% of schools have multi-grade classes. The comparable figure for France is 22% and Sweden 35%. In Wales 30% of primary schools had between one and four teachers in a primary cycle spanning seven years in 1976. In England more than 1,000 schools have enrolments of less than 50 students.

The gap between the multi-grade reality, teacher education and curriculum assumptions

Multi-grade teaching is probably more common than we realise or care to admit. Table 1 and columns 3 and 4 in Table 2 on one and two-teacher schools present only the extremes of the multi-grade reality. Any school with more grades (eg six grades of primary) than teachers (eg four teachers) must organise learning for some of its teachers and students along multi-grade lines some of the time. And yet few Ministries of Education, few Curriculum Development Agencies and few Teacher Education Institutions recognise this reality. The knowledge required to work effectively within it appears not to be transmitted via textbooks on curriculum and teaching methods, via syllabi, via teacher's guides, nor via the content and pedagogy of teacher training colleges or Universities. The knowledge required for effective multi-grade teaching is rendered illegitimate by those with a responsibility for training and supporting teachers in their work.

A brief review of standard texts on curriculum development illustrates the point. The selection was made from the library of the Institute of Education at the University of London, which houses one of the largest English language collections of texts on education. The literature which addresses primary schools tends to assume that same-age class groups are the basic organisational units for which curricula are developed. There is no mention of multi-grade, multiclass or mixed-age teaching in a collection on Aims, Influence and Change in the Primary School Curriculum, edited by P.H. Taylor and published by the UK's National Foundation of Educational Research in 1975. More recently, Blenkin and Kelly (1987) write on The Primary Curriculum: a process approach to curriculum planning.

Again there is no mention of multi-grade. A mono-grade structure appears to be the taken-for-granted form of organisation An American textbook by Shepherd and Ragan (1982) refers to the "non-graded schools movement" in the US which had challenged nineteenth century American policy assumptions about the ideal organisation of learning and had encouraged de facto a multi-grade approach. However the impact of this movement in the US was short-lived and it is perhaps for this reason that Shepherd and Ragan make no reference to multi-grade teaching groups in their chapter on "curriculum delivery". In Understanding the Primary Curriculum, Boyd (1984), writing from an English perspective, makes no mention of multi-grade teaching but when discussing school-based curriculum development does mention the value of a flexible approach to the grouping of children. The problems of coping with special educational needs, ethnic differences, gender and new technology are addressed in the section on "curriculum issues" but the issues faced in multi-grade, multi-class and small schools do not warrant a mention. In view of the small proportion of schools in both the UK and the US in which multi-grade teaching occurs one can perhaps understand its exclusion from overviews of primary education organisation and curriculum, notwithstanding the fact that the issues are central to the needs of multi-grade teachers. However, it should be noted here that our review has barely scratched the surface of a Scandinavian literature on multi-grade teaching. Reports on the extent of multi-grade teaching in primary schools in Sweden by Malmros and Sahlin (1992) and in Finnish secondary schools by Laukkanen and Selventoinen (1978) suggest that multi-grade teaching enjoys a positive reception by many teachers, is adopted for pedagogical reasons, and is seen as a fertile ground for the development of new curriculum ideas for all types of school, not simply multi-grade.

The widespread exclusion of discussion of multi-grade teaching, and the implicit assumption that most teaching is mono-grade, is the more surprising in texts which purport to focus on the conditions of schooling in developing countries. In 1986 the National Institute of Educational Research in Tokyo undertook a study of the elementary and primary school curriculum in the countries of Asia and the Pacific (NIER 1986). Although the information presented on class size indicates that multi-grade teaching is rather widespread no country reports makes specific mention of it. The text on India, Australia and Nepal includes sections on school organisation methods of teaching and classroom management. None addresses the implications for these of the multi-grade reality. In other words it appears to be a "non-problem". Although the report on Pakistan mentions that one of the problems is a lack of trained teachers to handle multiple classes, this issue is not re-addressed in the account of teacher training. In his Curriculum and Reality in African Primary Schools, Hawes (1979) makes a passing reference to single teacher schools in discussion of official education statistics. Class sizes in "deep rural" areas are often low and uneven, and

it is common to find small classes sharing a classroom, sometimes with a single teacher, sometimes with more than one but nearly always seated as a separate group with their own 'territory' and blackboard, for their exists a strange orthodoxy that a teacher with modest education and training 'cannot be taught to handle more than one class at a time'.

(Hawes 1979:15)

Unfortunately Hawes neither explores the orthodoxy nor challenges it. Elsewhere he explores the problems of large class teaching, but not in relation to mixed-grade/age classes (Hawes 1978). The omission continues in Onwuka's (1981) edited collection on Curriculum Development in Africa and Grant's (1978) discussion of School Methods with Younger Children written for an African audience.

In general then it would appear that a mono-grade organisation of schools remains the taken-for-granted assumption of most of those who research and advise on curriculum development in both developed and developing countries. Multi-grade teaching is assumed either not to exist, or to exist but to be invisible, or to exist at the margins but to be non-problematic, or to be recognised as problematic but non-resolvable and therefore best not mentioned

There are a few exceptions to this dominant educational literature. Although UNESCO does not collect routine statistics on the extent of multi-grade teaching within school systems globally, it has, since 1961, recognised that it is an educational condition in need of constant support and attention. The one-teacher school conference sponsored by the International Bureau of Education in 1961 and the International conference of Ministries of Education led to the establishment of unitary schools in Latin America (UNESCO 1961). Throughout the 1980s the Asia and the Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development discussed the continuing problems faced by multi-grade teachers especially in rural, isolated and sparsely populated areas (eg UNESCO/APEID 1981, 1982, 1988, 1989). The 1989 UNESCO/APEID report confirmed many of the curriculum points raised above about the marginal, peripheral and anomalous status of multi-grade teaching and schools. The summary of experiences from Australia, Bangladesh, People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand confirmed that:

primary curriculum documents and their associated lists of "minimum learning competencies" have not been specifically designed for use by teachers in multi-grade schools

school plans, instructional materials and methodological guidelines are often difficult to apply to multi-grade teaching situations

there is a shortage of support materials for teachers and individualised instructional materials for learners

there is a need for more work on the kinds of continuous evaluation, diagnostic testing, remediation and feedback which would best assist multi-grade teaching

and added that

although many teachers work in multi-grade teaching situations few countries have developed special teacher training curricula for pre- or in-service training. Teaching practice during preservice is invariably carried out in mono-grade schools

teachers posted to teach in multi-grade schools "develop a sort of psychological alienation from the school"

the educational system as a whole pays inadequate attention to the proper functioning of multi-grade schools through, for example, not filling vacant teaching positions in rural areas, the absence of systems of teacher accountability, a lack of basic physical facilities in these schools, lack of training for supervisors of multi-grade schools and a general "inattentiveness of education officers to the needs of these schools"

adapted from APEID (1989)

The purpose of this review is to draw together material from a range of multi-grade educational settings. The difficulties which we have faced in identifying and locating material and in having a modest amount of it translated reflects its status on the fringe of national systems of education, of national and international research and policy agenda and of information networks. It is an educational condition barely addressed in national policies of education, almost non-existent in the content of teacher education courses and mostly ignored by national curriculum developers. Where the issue has been a matter for research the findings are generally reported in journals which deal with matters rural or peripheral to the mainstream of educational debate. It is essentially a problem faced by teachers and students in peripheral rural areas unsupported and unrecognised by mainstream and centralised education systems. We are confident that our review has scratched only the surface of the total stock of written material and collective professional advice but recognise also that much of it has probably been written by teachers working in peripheral settings which increase the likelihood of its remaining at the periphery of information dissemination networks.