In March 2020, the government of Uganda closed all schools and other educational institutions to mitigate the wide spread of COVID-19. This exposed significant risk especially to rural areas where there is limited access to reading materials or virtual learning platforms to continue learning. Ministry of Education and Sports’ (MoES) Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19 (April 2020) outlined measures of continuing learning through radio, take home packages and digital learning. MoES also decided to provide psychosocial support to minimize the adverse effects of COVID-19 on pupils, teachers and the education system at large, through support from USAID/Uganda Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity (LARA).The project planned to support MoES to enhance capacity of Primary Teachers college tutors and administrators to cascade psychosocial support training to head teachers and teachers in 43 districts. The objective of the training was to i) equip participants with knowledge and skills on psychosocial support, ii) identify psychosocial needs and discuss appropriate interventions and iii) apply psychosocial support intervention skills. The Facilitator guide provides information which will help reduce COVID-19 related stress, anxiety and prepare teachers for school reopening. In addition, teachers will be able to protect and provide counselling to pupils.

Survey of Perceptions of School Climate: A positive school climate is friendly, inviting and supportive; pupils feel safe and are treated fairly, by their peers and the school staff. A school that struggles to maintain a positive school climate often creates an environment that discourages students from attending. In the Survey of Perceptions of School Climate, respondents are asked about statements describing different dimensions of school life and must answer according to their perception of whether it is true or not for their school. For example, pupils and teachers were asked statements, such “In this school, teachers treat boys and girls equally,” “In this school, violence is a problem,” or “In this school, pupils are punished too much for little things.” The survey is composed of 29 school climate statements that are used to assess pupils and the school staff perceptions of the climate for their school. Using a staged approach, respondents are initially asked if they “agreed” or “disagreed” that the statement read to them was true for their school. The respondent could either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). Once they selected the first response, they were then asked if they “agreed,” “strongly agreed,” “disagreed,” or “strongly disagreed” with the statement. This staged approach was introduced to encourage increased variation in the responses. The data collectors display only the two appropriate cards (“agreed” or “disagreed”) for the initial step and then only the two cards (e.g., Agree and Strongly Agree or Disagree and Strongly Disagree) for the second step. The data collectors record only the final answer. Students’ Experience of SRGBV Survey: The Survey of Pupil Experiences of SRGBV assesses the extent that a pupil experiences the three different forms of SRGBV: (1) bullying, (2) corporal punishment, and (3) sexual harassment and assault. The subject of violence against pupils is a sensitive topic and it can be difficult for a child to respond to a survey that asks him or her to recollect and report on violent experiences. Due to the sensitive nature of this survey, it is critical that the survey administrator develop a safe and trusting environment for collecting data. To this end, the set of questions for each subscale (i.e., bullying, corporal punishment, and sexual violence) is preceded by an ice-breaker activity. An icebreaker story is read to the pupil and a brief informal discussion about the topic takes place before the survey questions are administered. This is extremely helpful in assisting the pupils to understand, in advance, what the questions are about and to enhance their comfort during the session. After the rapport building session for each subscale, pupils are asked to think about different specific acts of violence related to the subscale and to report how many times they experienced each act of violence during the school term. Pupils could either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). The response options are “Never”, “Once”, “A few times” and “Many times”. Gender Attitudes Survey: Gender discriminating norms, combined with the hierarchical power structures that reinforce these norms, are some of the root causes of SRGBV and enable all forms of SRGBV to go unchecked in and around schools. The eventual goal of eliminating SRGBV requires a shift in gender attitudes to be more favorable toward gender equity and toward more balanced power relations. The Gender Attitudes Survey provides a mechanism to track changes in gender attitudes as a result of the Journeys intervention. Pupils, school staff and parents/guardians can participate in the Gender Attitudes Survey. Respondents are asked if they agree or disagree with different statements that reflect common gender roles and stereotypes, including gendered behavior traits, such as “boys should not cry” and “girls should be quiet and shy,” gender roles, such as “women should not disagree with their husbands,” gendered education expectations for boys and girls, such as “it is more important for boys than girls to perform well in school,” and hierarchical power structures reinforcing male aggression against women, such as “there are times when it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife.” The survey is composed of 14 gender norms statements that are used to assess the attitudes of pupils, school staff and parents. Using a staged approach, respondents are initially asked if they “agreed” or “disagreed” that the statement read was true for them. The respondent could either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). Once they selected the first response, they were then asked if they “agreed,” “strongly agreed,” “disagreed,” or “strongly disagreed” with the statement. This staged approach was introduced to encourage increased variation in the responses. The data collectors display only the two appropriate cards (“agreed” or “disagreed”) for the initial step and then only the two cards (e.g., Agree and Strongly Agree or Disagree and Strongly Disagree) for the second step. The data collectors record only the final answer. Student SEL Survey: The Student SEL Survey was designed to track the benefits of the Journeys for Pupils component of the integrated three-component Journeys intervention (i.e. Journeys for Pupils, Journeys for School Staff and Journeys for Community Members). Journeys for Pupils is aimed at strengthening pupils’ social and emotional skills. At the same time, the program provides exposure to content that promotes a consciousness about contributing to a positive school culture and climate and preventing SRGBV. This survey was not meant to comprehensively assess all aspects of SEL, but rather to assess the social and emotional skills that best serve pupils’ ability to successfully navigate their world, avoid violence, and seek assistance when they do witness or experience violence. In this survey, pupils are asked to listen to a variety of statements depicting different behaviors representing certain social skills. For each statement pupils are asked to think about how true this is for them. They are asked (and trained with practice items) to either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). The response choices are “Never True for Me”, “Rarely True for Me”, “Sometimes True for Me”, and “Always True for Me”. Demographics and Family Wealth Survey: The Demographics and Family Wealth Survey includes a set of questions that focus on the pupil’s home environment to better understand and control for socioeconomic factors when analyzing the impact of the Journeys intervention. Pupils are asked whether they have a variety of household items in the home, their water source, source of heat for cooking, and sanitary facilities. A stimuli with pictures to aid pupils identify the appropriate items is appended to the survey.

This tool is used by school support actors (e.g., DEOS, DIS, MEOs, DIS, MIS, IS, CCTs, head teachers, project staff) to monitor and support implementation of Journeys for school staff and Journeys for pupils. The tool serves two purposes: (i) to gather monitoring data to understand how well schools are organized and supported to implement the Journeys program. Monitoring data is also used for reporting purposes. With regard to Journeys for school staff, the type of monitoring data gathered using the MSS tool include the number of school change agents (SCAs) in the school, number of SCAs that have Journeys handbooks, number of Journeys for staff activities that the school conducted, evidence that SCAs receive support from support actors, number of SRGBV cases that have been resolved out of the total cases reported. For UKU, monitoring data gathered include the number of UKU teams in the school, number of UKU teams that have attendance registers, whether UKU attendance registers are updated regularly and whether UKU teams have work plans; (ii) to supervise and support SCAs and Teacher Patrons. SCAs lead Journeys sessions for Schools Staff while Teacher Patrons lead Journeys sessions for Pupils/UKU. The MSS tool has an observation checklist for School Staff Journeys sessions and an observation checklist for UKU sessions. The checklists are used by the school support actors to record key information about the Journeys session they observed, including whether the SCA/Teacher Patron applied Journeys facilitation approaches, followed the rights steps to conduct the session and used the planning form and evaluation form correctly to initiate and appraise the session respectively. Each checklist is complemented with a feedback section where the school support actors document the positive things (areas of strength) the SCA/Teacher Patron demonstrated during the Journeys activity and area of improvement.

LARA developed action research tools to measure the level of fidelity of implementation of the EGR methods and generate lessons learned to inform adaptations in EGR programming. The action research tools gather both historical and real-time data at the school. They include the EGR core methodologies action research tool; the remedial instruction action research tool and the intensive coaching action research tool (subdivided into two tools i.e. head teacher coaching event log and school based community of practice event log). The EGR core methodologies action research tool assesses the teacher’s perception of the Teacher Guide usability, level of macro pacing, implementation of lesson plan elements, implementation of core EGR methodologies and tracking of instructional adaptations by the teacher. The remedial instruction research tool tracks the teacher’s perception to remedial instruction, the implementation of group-based instruction as well as in-class assessment. The intensive coaching action research tool tracks teacher’s perception of intensive coaching and keeps a log of head teacher instructional coaching events in addition to school-based community of practice activities. The action research tools are designed to be deployed electronically in order to seamlessly incorporate extra data quality standards and innovations like the Stalling’s classroom observation snapshot (Stallings and Kaskowitz, 1974 ). The project also developed the action research process flow guidelines to guide data collection activities.

There are two sets of monitoring and support supervision (MSS) tools that the project has been using throughout the implementation period. These are; (i) the Lesson Observation Tools; and (ii) the Head teacher/CCT Coaching Tool. The lesson observation tools are used by the support supervision actors (e.g., school inspectors, CCTs, head teachers and project staff) during support supervision visits to schools. Specifically, the tools gather monitoring data on the uptake of EGR instructional methods by teachers to understand what teachers are doing well and areas where they need support. LARA developed a lesson observation tool for every grade (P1 – P4). Each tool has a section to assess the teacher’s preparedness for the lesson they are going to teach; a check list to assess the teacher’s instructional practices during the lesson; and the post observation section where the support supervision actor summarizes what the teacher did well and areas that the teacher needs to improve. The lesson observation tool for each grade is accompanied by a learner check which is administered to a sample of 4-6 learners per grade. The purpose of a learner check is to quickly show the classroom teacher and or head teacher the reading abilities of the learners present in the observed EGR lesson. The learner checks are designed from the content of the previous weeks and the teacher is able to gauge and determine the areas to prioritize when carrying out revision or remedial sessions. The Head teacher/CCT Coaching Tool is used by the zonal head teachers and CCTs to support head teachers so that they can in turn effectively support teachers in their schools. The zonal head teachers and CCTs observe and support head teachers to provide effective instructional support to teachers. The tool has a pre-observation section which assesses how the head teacher is prepared to support the teacher in class; a lesson observation section used by the zonal head teachers and CCTs to evaluate the actions of the head teacher while in the class observing the lesson; and post observation section to appraise how the head teacher conducts the post observation discussion with the teacher.