Short Message Service (SMS)–Based Remote Support and Teacher Retention of Training Gains in Malawi

Chapter 5 of the book Cultivating Dynamic Educators: Case Studies in Teacher Behavior Change in Africa and Asia. This chapter critically reviews the design, implementation, and evaluation of an attempt to study an exploratory short message service (SMS)–based intervention conducted under the auspices of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Malawi Early Grade Reading Activity (EGRA).1 The overall EGRA program, which was implemented from July 2013 to October 2016 in 1,614 schools across 11 educational districts, was designed to support Malawi’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (MOEST) to improve reading outcomes in both Chichewa. and English languages among children in grades 1–3. The