Practical Education Network (PEN) is a non-profit organisation that works with educational stakeholders to improve students' learning outcomes in STEM subjects by building teacher capacity at the pre-tertiary level. PEN’s blended teacher-training programme - infused with MIT-style learning-by-doing - empowers teachers to implement hands-on teaching techniques using low-cost, locally available materials and apply inquiry-based teaching pedagogies. This approach addresses the critical issues of limited to nonexistent access to expensive lab equipment to make STEM lessons experiential and the prevailing overemphasis on rote learning in most African classrooms.
Since its inception in 2014, Practical Education Network (PEN) has made significant strides in transforming STEM education across Africa, starting from Ghana and moving to Rwanda and Liberia. PEN has successfully trained over 8,700 basic school teachers, enabling more than 2 million learners to engage in hands-on learning. At Ghana’s Ministry of Education’s invitation, PEN infused its hands-on content into the revised national primary school curriculum. PEN is currently involved in the development of the curriculum for Ghana’s pilot STEM schools. The Ministry, through the National Teaching Council and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), has also certified PEN as a training provider and approved PEN’s Teacher Resource Manuals for school use.
A controlled research study conducted by Babb, J. J., & Stockero, S. L. (2020) on the Impact of Practical Education Network on students in selected Ghanaian junior high school science classrooms revealed that in just one year, 97% greater improvement in student performance on national exams and a remarkable 141% greater boost in student attitudes toward science were achieved compared to a control group. Female students increased disproportionately (Beem, 2020). A noteworthy example of PEN’s effective teacher training model is the continuous improvement in Science grades by students of a school - Novastar Academy - in Ghana at the national examination level. In 2018, PEN implemented a hands-on training program for science teachers at Novastar to improve the quality of STEM education. Post-PEN training, there has been a clear and significant improvement trend in Science performance, with average scores improving dramatically by 2021 and maintaining high performance in subsequent years. No one in the 2018 and 2019 cohorts scored “1” - the highest grade possible in the national exams, which is the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). By 2020, 14% of the students who sat for the BECE exam scored “1”. In 2021, all students who sat for the national exams scored “1”, The following year, 71% scored “1” and the remaining scored “2” - the second highest. In 2023, 94% of the students scored “1” and the remaining 6% scored “2”.
The PEN model has received several international recognitions that underscore its unique contributions to STEM education in Africa through the use of relevant hands-on STEM learning techniques, local materials, and the adoption of low-tech digital solutions. These include the Global South COVID-19 Digital Innovation Challenge (Winner, 2021) by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU); Science Technology and Innovation for SDGs - Winner (2020) by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and Teachers and Educators Challenge - Winner (2018), hosted by MIT SOLVE. PEN has played a significant role in raising the profile of STEM in Ghana - from helping introduce the term “hands-on” into the vernacular to infusing its content into the national curricula.