The British Department for International Development (DFID) has partnered with the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) to conduct empirical research on inefficiencies in the Ugandan education system. This research will help the Ministry better understand the severity, causes, and consequences of an enrolment bulge in early primary classes in Uganda. Specifically, this study is investigating the magnitude of repetition in primary 1. It encompasses a nationally representative sample of pupils, and uses information from interviews with pupils, parents/guardians, and teachers.

Executive Function (EF) refers to a range of cognitive skills that are key to problem solving and a child's ability to “learn how to learn.” These skills experience an important growth period during early childhood; thus, between 2005 and 2010, researches at the University of North Carolina designed a battery of tools to measure these skills in pre-school aged children known as EF Touch. In 2016, RTI International – a research institute dedicated to evidence-based approaches to education policy and practice - identified EF Touch as a unique opportunity to integrate early childhood EF measurement in its battery of existing international education assessment tools. EF Touch was originally developed by UNC in note card format; then adapted to a paper and pencil format; and later transitioned to laptop and touch-screen monitor “station” requiring two assessors and an expensive third party scoring software. Although the laptop mediated approach was an improvement on paper-based administration, it was still clear that this model was not sustainable, portable, or cost effective for large deployment in the low and middle income (LMIC) contexts where RTI most often works – and where very little research on EFs in young children has been thus far conducted). Therefore, RTI sought to adapt Tangerine® - an open source software designed by RTI for low cost, large-scale, offline assessment – for use in the administration of EF Touch. More than 60 organizations worldwide have used Tangerine on tablets to conduct 1,500,000+ surveys in 70 countries and 100 languages. To accommodate the specific requirements of EF Touch, the Tangerine platform needed extensive modification to accommodate the specific needs of EF touch, including new A/V capabilities, unique millisecond time-stamps indicating reaction time, plus the development of complex skip logic commands tailored to individual performance. The resulting Tangerine-mediated battery of EF Touch tasks were designed to remain scientifically rigorous while significantly reducing costs (one assessor, one tablet); increasing scalability in developing country contexts (offline assessment); and reducing the burden of complicated data entry (data uploaded directly to the server). This presentation provides an overview of EF touch, including the adaptation process to Tangerine and recent results from two field deployments in Kenya. The attached presentation does not contain video files to due the attachment size. The full presentation with videos of task demonstrations can be found via the included google drive link.

Success story about a recent kindergarten initiative under USAID's Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Project to help children and parents prepare to enter school.

This paper describes a 2016 pilot study undertaken in Uganda to document the real repetition rate in Primary 1 classes and to examine the relationship between repetition in Primary 1 and attendance in pre-primary education. The study explored knowledge and practice about the age of entry for children into pre-primary education and Primary 1. It also documented parents’ knowledge and expectations about participation in pre-primary education. The study was conducted in two purposefully selected districts in Uganda (a “high-risk” district—with higher rates of poverty and reported repetition—and a “low-risk” district—with lower rates of poverty and reported repetition) by RTI International, with support from the Development Research and Social Policy Analysis Center, a Ugandan data collection firm. In addition to answering research questions about early primary repetition and pre-primary attendance, the pilot aimed to test a methodology of triangulating information from the Education Management Information System, school records, and parents’ reports. The study confirmed that it is possible to compare data from teacher and classroom records with data from parent and teacher interviews; parents or caregivers were invited to come to school for an interview, and a large percentage did. The study also showed that according to teachers and parents, repetition rates in Primary 1 are much higher than perceived by the system. Repetition rates in Primary 1, as perceived by parents and teachers, are quite high—roughly 30% to 40%, depending on source and location. In addition, parents reported that early entry into Primary 1 (and the possible resulting repetition) is being used as a substitute for pre-primary education due to the lack of preprimary schooling options. Some parents send their children to school at an early age because they cannot afford pre-primary schooling, even though they realize the child might have to repeat the year or will learn less the first time through Primary 1. For children who attended pre-primary, the data demonstrate a strong “protective” effect on their chances of repeating Primary 1 (i.e., the children who attended pre-primary were less likely to repeat in Primary 1). Gender was not found to affect these issues to any significant degree.

As a result of Universal Primary Education (UPE) and reform efforts, primary school enrollment in Uganda doubled from 2.9 million in 1995 to 5.8 million by 1998. By 2016, enrollment had reached 8.3 million. Although enrollment gains have been dramatic, the completion rate has stalled for at least a decade, with only about 60% of learners completing primary school. RTI International conducted research that suggests this is due to problems that begin in the first few grades of primary school (and earlier). Primary 1 (P1) repetition is partially attributed to lack of access to early childhood educational opportunities. This brief summarizes these and other key findings of the research, “Repetition of Primary 1 and Pre-Primary Education in Uganda,” published in 2017.

Midterm evaluation of longitudinal study conducted through the Tayari Early Childhood Development and Education Programme. Tayari is an intervention implemented by the Kenyan Ministry of Education and four counties, with technical support from RTI International and funding from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). Tayari is focused on designing, piloting and testing the cost effectiveness of investments to increase school readiness for children in Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) centres in Uasin Gishu, Siaya, Laikipia and Nairobi counties.

Presentation at CIES March 2017 (Atlanta).

Presentation delivered at CIES 2017 (Atlanta). The Tayari intervention’s randomized controlled trial design is structured to allow for causal inference of Tayari’s impact on school readiness. Previous research has shown how similar ECD programs have affected learning outcomes, but the literature remains silent on how individual children’s skills transition over time. The Tayari longitudinal research design allows us to estimate growth trajectories of individual children. This is particularly salient as the literature lacks models for how literacy and numeracy skills interact with the executive functioning and socioemotional skills that Tayari investigates interact with each other over time. The Tayari longitudinal study follows more than 3100 learners across three rounds of data collection and a wider range of sills than is available in the Tayari impact evaluation. Given how little is known about how children’s core ECD skills grow, the Tayari longitudinal intervention estimates first how the skills grow in the normal control condition, and then how the Tayari program affects growth rates and relationships between learning elements. Finally, the Tayari longitudinal study will continue to develop an understanding of how children transition skills between the two levels of pre-primary in Kenya to the primary education sector where the Tusome literacy program is being implemented at national scale.

[Presentation delivered at CIES 2017]. Education system data has indicated a pattern of over-enrollment in the early grades in some low-income countries. One factor that may influence the observed enrollment bulge is access to pre-primary education programs, as children who do not enter school prepared could be more likely to repeat leading to more children enrolled than are of enrollment-age. This presentation reports on a research study undertaken in Uganda to better understand pupil enrollment and repetition in Primary 1 as it relates to pre-primary access. Data was collected from schools in a district with high reported repetition, lack of or low preprimary access, and high apparent dropout between grade 1 and 2, and a district with low reported repetition, high preprimary access, and low apparent grade 1 dropout. School records were reviewed to collect ages of enrolled pupils and repeater status, in order to calculate age patterns and repetition rates in Primary 1 for each district. In addition, parents of randomly sampled pupils were interviewed about their child’s preprimary attendance, repetition of primary one or other grades, and access to preprimary education programs. Teachers of the sampled pupils were also interviewed regarding pupil age and repetition history. Overall, data was collected on 1,909 pupils in 80 schools, and 1,792 parents were interviewed. The presentation will focus on the following research questions: 1) What are the estimated repetition rates as reported by parents and schools in Primary 1 in schools in the sampled low- and high-risk districts in Uganda; 2) What are the ages of the pupils attending Primary 1 in our sample of Uganda schools and how does this relate to repetition; 3) How do the reported repetition rates relate to parent report of ECD attendance and access; and 4) What is the discrepancy between school-reported and parent-reported repetition rates. Data collection methods, measurement of repetition and ECD attendance and access, and policy conclusions will also be discussed.

Measurement of learning is central to the Sustainable Development Goals for education, both in early primary (grade 2/3) and in early childhood (under the age of 5) (IAEG 2016). Of particular concern is the ability of global measurement approaches to reflect the social and linguistic differences of a diverse range of societies, including traditionally marginalized groups. This presentation relies on literacy assessment data to answer the following question: can results from non-equated national assessments be used to report against global goals?