Teaching quality and student learning progress during Rwanda’s Leaders in Teaching programme: A longitudinal observational study

This paper examines changes in teaching quality among secondary school teachers in Rwanda during the Leaders in Teaching (LIT) professional development programme and explores how different dimensions of teaching quality are associated with students’ mathematics learning progress. Drawing on longitudinal data from 103 schools across 14 districts, we describe trends in three dimensions of teaching quality: teachers' content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and classroom practices (captured through three sub-domains). Using value-added modelling, we analyse the relationships between these dimensions and students’ mathematics learning progress over one academic year. We observe significant improvements in teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, with particularly strong gains among female teachers and those in less-selective regular schools while observed classroom practices show limited change overall, with improvement concentrated in instructional facilitation sub-domain. Qualitative lesson observation notes point to promising improvements in instructional clarity, student engagement, and gender-equitable student participation. Among the teaching quality dimensions examined, only teachers’ content knowledge and one sub-domain of classroom practices (facilitating instruction) are significantly associated with students’ mathematics learning progress. The findings offer insights for teacher professional development initiatives by emphasising the importance of sustained support to help teachers translate gains in content knowledge and emerging improvements in pedagogical content knowledge into effective classroom practice. • Uses longitudinal data and value-added analysis to examine links between teaching quality and student learning gains. • Teachers’ content knowledge increased significantly over the LIT programme. • Pedagogical content knowledge also increased significantly but from a low baseline. • Qualitative evidence suggests improvements in teacher instructional practices, mainly ability to facilitate instruction. • Teachers’ content knowledge and a sub-domain of classroom practices are significantly associated with learning progress.