Despite successes in improving access to primary education, the Malawi education system has struggled to produce high levels of learning. The country has consistently ranked at or near the bottom in regional learning assessments, and an Early Grade Reading Assessment conducted in 2010 showed that 76 percent of Standard 2 learners could not identify any letters. To address the low reading performance, The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) partnered with the Government of Malawi to pilot several projects aimed at improving reading performance. The lessons from these pilot projects led to the development of a National Reading Strategy (NRS) and a National Reading Program (NRP). With support from USAID, the NRP’s goal is to improve the reading skills of all students in Chichewa and English in the first four years of primary school. It does this through reforms to the curriculum, teacher professional development and coaching, development and distribution of teaching and learning materials, continuous assessment and remediation, and targeted support for learners. USAID supports the NRP by providing finance and technical assistance through several activities including MERIT: Malawi Early Grade Reading Improvement Activity (MERIT), Yesani Ophunzira (YESA), Strengthening Early Grade Reading in Malawi (SEGREM) and Reading for All Malawi (REFAM). This is the recording of the #vCIES 2020 conference session, which includes representatives from the MoEST and NRP implementation partners discussing their roles in supporting the NRP and sharing lessons around their approach, achievements, and challenges as they collaborate to get all children learning. The combined experiences of the partners will be useful for other projects, organizations, and governments who are looking to make a wide-scale change in their education systems.

As the world faces higher and higher unemployment rates among its youth, there is increasing interest in evaluating whether schools are adequately preparing their youth to enter the workforce. Do early school leavers (those leaving by Grade 9) possess the “foundational” and “employability” skills needed to effectively enter the workforce? Assessment instruments for literacy and mathematics appropriate to the end of the primary cycle do exist. However these tend to be in depth, large scale, regional or national assessments and not the rapid assessments that EGRA/EGMA are. In addition, these tools only measure some foundational skills, such as reading and math. Previous investigation on employability skills identified three “clusters” of commonly cited skills in the international literature: cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills. These three clusters align favorably with the three domains specified by the Committee on Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills, convened by the US-based National Research Council, as well as other prominent models. A subset of these skills could be assessed, in combination with foundational skills such as literacy and mathematics, in order to ascertain whether or not youth of secondary school age (i.e. around 15–18 years of age) are finishing their tenure in formal schooling with at least a modicum of “work readiness” skills. This report describes a framework for understanding and measuring employability skills.

The traditional face-to-face (FTF) survey method cannot accommodate the privacy needed to mitigate the effect of social-desirability bias, particularly with the most sensitive topics such as corporal punishment and sexual violence, nor does it provide a means to elicit authentic responses. Indeed, an assessor asking a respondent questions about their experiences of violence will contribute to the stress of taking such a survey. However, audio computer-assisted self-interview (ACASI) does hold promise in addressing this issue with survey administration. This brief provides an overview of ACASI, discusses a 2019 large-scale study that compared the ACASI and FTF administration methods, and provides data for discussion regarding ACASI’s viability as a more effective method of survey administration when collecting data on experiences of SRGBV.

La Evaluación de Matemáticas en los Primeros Grados (EGMA) Toolkit

Buku ini merupakan buku sumber yang memberikan konsep, ide dan contoh praktis dalam pembelajaran literasi di kelas awal dan kegiatan literasi terutama di kelas awal. Isi Buku Sumber untuk Dosen LPTK: Pembelajaran Literasi di Kelas Awal di LPTK sebagai berikut: • Apa dan Mengapa Literasi di Kelas Awal • Menciptakan Lingkungan Kelas yang Literat • Media Literasi di Kelas Awal • Penilaian • Pemodelan Membaca dan Menulis • Membaca dan Menulis Terbimbing • Membaca dan Menulis Bersama • Membaca dan Menulis Interaktif • Membaca dan Menulis Mandiri • Membaca dan Menulis Permulaan • Membaca Pemahaman • Menulis Kreatif | | | | This book is a source book that provides concepts, ideas and practical examples in learning literacy in early grades and literacy activities especially in early grades. The contents of the Resource Book for LPTK Lecturers: Literacy Learning in Early Classes in LPTK as follows: • What and Why Literacy in Early Classes • Creating a Literal Classroom Environment • Media Literacy in Early Classes • Assessment • Reading and Writing Modeling • Guided Reading and Writing • Reading and Writing Together • Interactive Reading and Writing • Independent reading and writing • Reading and Writing Beginning • Reading Comprehension • Creative Writing

The USAID/Uganda School Health and Reading Program (SHRP) works through existing Ministry systems to provide reading instruction in 12 local languages and English to over 3,000 primary schools. A major focus of the program has been on increasing the use of evidence to inform programs and improve performance. This CIES 2019 presentation highlights examples of program support to the Ministry to take the lead in information generation to increase “buy in” of results and, ultimately, action.

CIES presentation of Early Childhood Education landscape report for the Asia region under All Children Reading - Asia.

The Barometer offers a dynamic tool for interactive use of data on early grade reading outcomes. The ability to look at how the data are impacted by different parameters, like the level at which a reading benchmark is set, allows users to consider what benchmark and target for students achieving that benchmark in the near term may or may not be realistic. Furthermore, when such data are available, the Barometer also allows users to review the impact of interventions that have contributed to improving reading outcomes, and then factor in whether they can expect those kinds of improvements in the future, given the different investments and initiatives underway in their countries. The presentation is a short demonstration of these two features of the Barometer – target setting and considering the impact of previous or current interventions. Presented at CIES 2019.

This presentation is based on an activity that was designed to apply lessons learned and best practices from the recent EGRA Benchmarks and Standards Research Report (RTI International, 2018) to a five-language benchmarking activity for early grade reading in India.

This panel shared presentations from Uganda government officials and development partners which are collaboratively engaged in the efforts to improve and assess EGR in Uganda’s primary schools. Panel participants will discuss the process of gradually scaling up program activities to reach the majority of the nation’s schools by working with and through government structures. The Uganda MoES which has led the process from the begin will discuss how it has worked with donors and other development partners to mobilize resources and technical assistance by incorporating EGR in the ministry’s overall strategic plans. The Uganda National Examinations Board and the Uwezo Uganda initiative will discuss how they have been able to scale up assessment of Ugandan children’s reading skills through government ownership and civil society engagement in conducting early grade reading assessments. The GPE, SHRP, and LARA projects will share how they have worked through government structures at both the national and district levels to develop instructional materials in 12 local languages plus English and improve EGR instruction and learning in schools in a sustainable way. The panel will illustrate that attaining measurable improvements in reading scores at scale takes considerably more time and effort than smaller scale and pilot programs because interventions at scale require working through government structures and personnel, requiring systems strengthening and capacity building while also implementing program activities. This requires enormous effort and constant collaboration among government and development partners with sustainability as the ultimate objective.