ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on the Learning Assistant (LA) programme in Sierra Leone, a component of the UK Government-funded Girls Education Challenge. The LA programme has enabled hundreds of young women to train as teachers in remote rural areas where schools are understaffed and there are few female teachers. The programme provides a route to teaching through a combination of distance study to enter teacher college and in-school work experience where LAs support teachers and children in rural classrooms. The chapter describes ecological approach, exploring the support systems that LAs have. The interview data show the significance of the community in developing and motivating future teachers in remote rural areas, where there are many challenging circumstances. The authors argue that the LA programme disrupts a 'generic globally structured educational agenda designed by donors and global actors' by getting meaningfully inside what is feasible, and indeed needed, in specific contexts.
