In 2010, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with the Malawi Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), developed a project to improve primary education and implementation of the National Primary Curriculum. The Malawi Teacher Professional Development Support (MTPDS) project, as it is known, included five major results areas related to improving teaching policy, teacher performance, early grade literacy, primary teaching and learning materials, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. While many of the inputs designed to support these objectives took place on a national scale, a specific reading improvement program was designed and delivered in two districts in order to determine its effectiveness on a small scale. This report describes the impact of the intervention, evaluated based on a rigorous three-year randomized control trial (RCT) design.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Malawi Teacher Professional Development Support (MTPDS) project is a three-year activity supporting the professional development of teachers in Malawi and implementation of the National Primary Curriculum (NPC) with the goal of improving early grade reading and performance of learners. This report presents the results from a nationally representative study of primary school learners’ early grade reading skills in the Chichewa language, undertaken near the beginning of the school year, in November 2012. It is the third in a series of national samples designed to identify overall skills and gaps in order to inform national-level policies and strategies and determine the influence of policies and projects to address reading over time.

A two day workshop on November 12 and 13, 2014 brought together 26 education stakeholders, including representatives of the Department for Inspection and Advisory Services, The Department of Basic Education, the Department for Teacher Education and Development, the Malawi Institute for Education, Domasi College of Education, Teacher Training Colleges, and the Centre for Education, Research and Training. Staff from the USAID Malawi Early Grade Reading Activity also participated as did representatives of USAID/Malawi.

Synthesis of three data capacity assessments (Ghana, Mozambique, Philippines) that aimed to both to evaluate the countries’ data systems and to determine how well each country’s own data systems can: • Inform and support the development and implementation of education sector policies, plans, and strategies; • Provide the basis for coordinating and aligning external assistance in support of the education sector; • Underpin the development of USAID’s five-year country strategy, sector-specific programs, and projects; and • Generate data to evaluate and report on the performance, outcomes, and impact of USAID (and other) investments.

EdData II, sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), provided survey expertise to help national and local governments as well as the donor community assess education status in low income countries. The period of performance for EdData II Task Order 7, Learning Outcomes Research and Assessment-Related Projects, was October 2009–October 2013. Its purpose was to build on the measurement instruments developed and piloted under other EdData II task orders and to coordinate data, analysis, and reporting on learning outcomes with specific attention to early grade reading proficiency, early grade numeracy, and conditions of learning as indicated by school management effectiveness measures in a number of priority countries. This report summary gives a history of the effort in each country, including its purpose, various challenges encountered, and in-country reactions to the study findings.

The author reviewed Philippine and international journals and textbooks related to language, education, and reading; publications written or commissioned by organizations known for work in international education such as UNESCO, SIL, RTI International, and Save the Children; attended conferences and reviewed conference proceedings and abstract books; used Philippine census data from the National Statistics Office, and reviewed research studies produced by students, particularly of the University of the Philippines College of Education in Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines. The result is a report that may be one of the most comprehensive literature reviews covering language and literacy in the Philippines. While the purpose was to gather information about language characteristics and existing research on reading acquisition in Philippine local languages to inform the development and implementation of early grade reading assessments, the relevance of information collected in this paper goes far beyond just reading assessment. By wedding linguistic information (e.g. language characteristics, acquisition, use, and changes), sociopolitical context (historical background, law, and education, language, and cultural rights), and the reality of Philippine classrooms, this report could also inform curriculum, teaching methods, and policy development, particularly with regards to mother tongue-based multilingual education.

This report summarizes the findings from a baseline assessment that was conducted in February and March, 2014 to determine the current status of reading achievement in the “Cluster 2” schools in which the Program will be working, as well as achievement in control1 schools that will be used as a basis for comparison in assessing the effectiveness of the interventions.

In November 2013, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT), with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and technical assistance by RTI International, conducted the National Baseline Assessment for the 3Rs (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic) Using Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA), and Snapshot of School Management Effectiveness (SSME) in Standard 2 in Tanzania. The purpose of this study was to provide data that can be translated into an evidence base to inform policy decisions and interventions. The baseline assessment also provides rich performance and contextual data that can be used for comparison with midline and endline studies after the introduction of new reforms or interventions under the 3Rs campaign or the larger Big Results Now (BRN) initiative. This brief describes the workshop and presents the benchmarks.

This brief discusses Cluster 3 schools where Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) data were collected from 112 randomly selected program and control schools without the program in 9 districts in Uganda1 in October, 2015 from 1,504 program learners and 1,432 control learners at the end of P1 and the findings compared to baseline data collected at the beginning of P1 in February, 2015 from 1,599 program and 1,574 control learners.

This report summarizes the findings from a baseline assessment that was conducted in February and March, 2015 to determine the current status of reading achievement in the “Cluster 3” schools in which the Program is currently working, as well as achievement in control1 schools that will be used as a basis for comparison in assessing the effectiveness of the interventions going forward.