Policy linking is a standard-setting methodology, long used in many countries, to set benchmarks (or cut scores) on learning assessments that allow those countries to determine what percentage of students in their country are meeting minimum proficiency requirements for key skills such as reading and math. While it is an old standard-setting methodology, its use has been extended to help countries set benchmarks that will allow reporting against global standards. Policy linking allows countries to use their existing national and/or regional assessments to report against Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.1.1: “Proportion of children and young people in Grade 2 or 3 (4.1.1a), at the end of primary education (4.1.1b), and at the end of lower secondary education (4.1.1c) who achieve at least a minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics.” It works by linking assessments to the Global Proficiency Framework (GPF), a framework developed by global reading and math content experts based on current national content and assessment frameworks across more than 25 countries. The GPF provides performance expectations/ standards for learners in Grades 1-9 in reading and mathematics. By linking existing national and regional assessments to the GPF, countries and donors are able to compare learning outcomes across language groups in countries as well as across countries and over time, assuming all new assessments are subsequently linked to the GPF. In this roundtable, we will share learning from policy linking work that has taken place this past year. Following a brief introduction to Policy Linking for Measuring Global Learning Outcomes by Dr. Saima Malik, from USAID in Washington DC, Dr. Asumpta Matei from the Kenya National Examinations Council and Dr. Enos Radeny of USAID Kenya will present the model of a Policy Linking workshop that was designed and implemented in order to build ministry capacity as well as set benchmarks for grades 2 and 3 in English and Kiswahili in Kenya, Dr. Abdullah Ferdous and Dr. Jeff Davis of AIR (co-developers of the policy linking approach) will discuss the importance of feedback in establishing defensible global benchmarks during the policy linking process and Dr. Jodie Fonseca from RTI will share practical example from Nepal where policy linking was used to align the national assessment to the Global Proficiency Framework and proved to be a more cost-effective way to measure early grade reading outcomes than an EGRA. Melissa Chiappetta of Sage Perspectives will serve as discussant of the panel.

This presentation was delivered as part of the 2022 Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conference as part of a panel describing the Education Futures research activity undertaken by the Philippines Department of Education, with support from USAID/Philippines through the All Children Reading-Philippines program managed by RTI International. Under this activity, leaders in DepEd are engaging in a range of courses and workshops to learn and apply futures thinking methodologies for reimagining how education can be delivered differently to address recurring shortcomings. The authors are Maricel Fernandez (Research Officer, RTI International) and Mark Sy (Manager of EdTech Unit, Department of Education).

In the past two years, the COVID 19 pandemic and the ensuing and repeated school closures has caused an unprecedented upheaval to the education of children world-wide. With the onset of the pandemic, actors in education systems responded in myriads of ways to ensure children continued to learn while at home and when schools reopened. The purpose of this case study is to explore how educational stakeholders in the federal and provincial governments in Pakistan – Balochistan, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Kyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and Sindh, responded to school closures and re-openings during the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. As such, the research questions for the study are 1. How did actors in education respond to the COVID 19 pandemic in Pakistan? 2. What types of resilience capacities did actors in education exhibit? To answer these questions, the case study delves into how the education actors - communities, parents, teachers, federal and provincial government education officials, private schools, non-governmental organizations, and international development partners responded and collaborated to support children’s learning, psycho-social support and well-being. The case study draws on resilience, and social ecological frameworks to explore the response of Pakistani education system to the pandemic. A social ecological lens enables the examination of the interaction and relationships of the individual, the community, the learning environment and educational systems and policies (Bronfenbrenner, (1986). Resilience frameworks explore the practices of education actors which promote resilience during and after disasters. (Reyes, 2013; Shah, Paulson, Couch, 2020; Shah, 2019). A qualitative case study method was best suited for this research study as it allows for an in-depth, descriptive and analytical study of how these education stakeholders responded to the challenges of the pandemic (Merriam, 1998). Data collection comprised semi structured interviews with purposive sampling of 34 individuals and 11 focus groups with public and private school teachers and parents. Emerging themes include the digital divide, strength in community, parent engagement and a lack of focus on marginalized populations. The emerging themes give examples of resilience capacities of stakeholder responses and illustrate positive, and promising practices as well as areas which need considerable reflection, and change in and implementation of federal and provincial policies. References Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986) Ecology of the family as a context for human development. American Psychologist.32:513–531. Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education. Revised and Expanded from" Case Study Research in Education." Jossey-Bass Publishers, 350 Sansome St, San Francisco, CA 94104. Reyes, J. (2013). What matters the most for education resilience. A framework paper. World Bank Shah, R. (2019). Transforming systems in times of adversity. White Paper, USAID Education and Conflict Network.

This presentation was part of a CIES 2022 panel on measuring learning through play and child SEL outcomes across humanitarian and LMIC contexts. The presentation focuses primarily on the development of a new SEL tool that is being used as part of impact evaluations for five learning through play implementation programs across five countries.

Prior Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRA) have been used to set reading fluency benchmarks in Tanzania for USAID report and for the Government of Tanzania (GoT). Since the EGRA requires one-on-one administration with trained enumerators, tablets, it is currently too expensive to be sustainable within the government system. The Group Administered Literacy Assessment (GALA) is an inexpensive and sustainable way to collect information about students’ reading abilities; is it group administered, does not require intensive training to administer, and is collected on paper, which is then entered into a database. Unfortunately, the GALA does not contain a fluency measure, which is still used as the basis of USAID reporting. The Jifunze Uelewe team created a study in order to identify the reading fluency equivalent benchmarks for the GALA on a subsample of the total GALA respondents. The study is administering the both the EGRA’s reading passage and the GALA to a sample of grade 2 and grade 4 pupils attending public schools in Tanzania. Data collection occurred in October 2021. Data collection was happening during the submission of this abstract, so no results are available for the abstract. But we will report the results and will discuss how well the linking process worked.

Play has the potential to transform the global learning crisis. In infancy and early childhood, play builds a strong foundation for later learning by improving brain development and growth (Goldstein, 2012). In education systems that lack capacity to support children effectively, play brings its own powerful engine to drive learning—the joyful, engaged intrinsic motivation of children themselves (Zosh et al., 2017). In this way, play contributes to the holistic development of children, helping to prepare them for the challenges of the current and future world. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to improve measurement of playful learning, to be able to add to the evidence base on what the benefits of play are, how playful learning takes place, and how it can be promoted at home and at school across the lifespan. This presentation focuses on a renewed conceptualization of playful learning and describes an innovative approach to measuring how settings contribute to playful learning for children ages 0 to 12, supported by the Lego Foundation. The settings we examine include homes, classrooms and ECD centers. Following Tseng and Seideman (2007), we view settings as consisting of social interactions (i.e. between teachers or caregivers and children) and the organization of resources (e.g. learning materials, games). First, we will present our conceptual framework which identifies six constructs to guide our measurement strategy. The constructs, such as ‘support for exploration’, represent the ways in which a setting supports playful learning. Next, we will present our contextualization framework which guides how we are adapting and modifying the measurement tools to different contexts. The tool consists of a protocol to observe adult-child interactions and survey measures conducted with teachers, caregivers and primary school pupils. As part of the development process for these measurement tools, observation and survey measures will go through a three-phase development process in Kenya, Ghana, Colombia, and Jordan. The Build phase involved collecting qualitative data from teachers, caregivers and students to understand their perception of playful learning and how it is supported at home and at school. Next, an Adapt phase took place where the initial versions of the measurement tools underwent cognitive interviewing, field adaptation, and a small pilot to adjust and extend the items in the tool. The third Test phase is a full pilot of the instruments, and the data will undergo rigorous psychometric analyses to review the validity and reliability of the tools in the four country contexts. We will use the results to adjust the instruments and to finalize the conceptual framework and contextualization strategies. The final toolkit will be publicly available towards the end of 2022 with supporting materials for contextualization, piloting, training and analysis. The toolkit will be available on a public platform designed to promote sharing of data collected using the tool and to collaborate to continually improve approaches to measuring support for playful learning.

This presentation describes findings from a study of the remote learning experience of school actors; school heads, teachers, parents and other HLPs, and learners during the first year of COVID-19 school closures in the Philippines. The focus of this presentation is only on one aspect of remote learning and that is how teacher well-being supported the success of schools in their pivot to remote learning. This presentation was delivered at the 2022 CIES Conference.

On January 18, 2022, the USAID’s Bureau for Asia collaborated with RTI International to reflect on the journey of early grade reading around the globe. The first presenter, Rosalina J. Villaneza, gave an introduction of national-scale early grade literacy assessments in the Philippines. The second presenter, Pilar Robledo, discussed the advent of USAID early grade reading programs, using the EGR Barometer to explore the impact of these programs. The final presenter, Luis Crouch, reflected on research and experience of early grade reading programs, suggesting the next steps on this journey to improve early grade literacy worldwide. View the recording below.

This presentation was delivered at the 2021 mEducation Alliance Symposium in a panel on the subject of education technologies for basic education in the Philippines.

This presentation was delivered at the 2021 mEducation Alliance Symposium in a panel on the subject of education technologies for basic education in the Philippines.