King, S.

The Institute for People’s Education (Institut pour l’Éducation Populaire, or IEP) designed the Read-Learn-Lead (RLL) program to demonstrate that the new official curriculum, if properly implemented and supported, can be a viable and effective approach to primary education, using mother tongue and a very specific pedagogical delivery approach. The RLL program sought also to demonstrate how the new Curriculum can be effectively implemented and supported, and what resources are needed to do so. RLL offers students and teachers carefully structured and systematic lessons, activities, and accompanying materials for instruction and practice on critical early reading skills in mother-tongue medium during the first years of elementary school. It is organized around three programmatic “results sets,” the first of which focuses on Grades 1 and 2 and is the subject of the present evaluation. This independent evaluation study, funded through a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and carried out by RTI, explored the effectiveness of the RLL program’s Results Set 1 as applied over three school years (2009-2010 to 2011-2012) in the Bamanankan language and in other Malian national languages (Bomu and Fulfulde in all three years, and Songhai in 2009 and 2010).

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?

Article published in the Journal of Development Effectiveness, Volume 8, 2016 - Issue 3. Published Abstract: To improve learning outcomes, an intervention in Kenya called the Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) Initiative provided pupil learning materials, teachers’ guides and modest teacher professional development in mathematics. This paper presents the causal impact of PRIMR’s mathematics intervention on pupil achievement indices for procedural and conceptual numeracy, using a differences-in-differences analytic strategy. The mathematics intervention produced modest, statistically significant results: generally similar results for males and females, a larger impact in grade 2 than grade 1, a larger impact in nongovernment schools than public schools, and smaller outcomes in mathematics than for English or Kiswahili. These findings have relevant policy implications in Kenya given an impending national mathematics programme.

This report addresses the main research question: In Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 schools, were the pupils who participated in the United States Agency for International Development’s Liberia Teacher Training Program (LTTP) Phase II (LTTP II) reading and mathematics interventions now achieving better results?

In 2012, Urban Planet Media and Entertainment Corporation/Urban Planet (UP) was awarded a grant through All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development. The grant awarded to UP was used to develop, pilot test, and evaluate an early literacy product in Uganda that targets parents through their mobile phones and encourages them to engage their early primary- school aged children in literacy skills-building activities outside of school hours. The product delivered to caregivers multimedia (text plus audio, or SMS+audio) content in Luganda on a daily basis over period of 91 days. During this period, all of the letters of the Luganda alphabet were introduced as well as 10 key vocabulary words all related to a short story. The product was evaluated by RTI International using RCT methodology. This is the Endline report describing the findings using a product evaluation framework.

In 2012, Urban Planet Media and Entertainment Corporation/Urban Planet (UP) was awarded a grant through All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development. The grant awarded to UP was used to develop, pilot test, and evaluate an early literacy product in Uganda that targets parents through their mobile phones and encourages them to engage their early primary- school aged children in literacy skills-building activities outside of school hours. The product, which is delivered in the Luganda language, delivers multimedia (text plus audio, or SMS+audio) content on a daily basis over period of 91 days, during which all of the letters of the Luganda alphabet are introduced as well as 10 key vocabulary words all related to a short story. The product was evaluated by RTI International using RCT methodology. This is the baseline report describing the methodology and participant characteristics after pre-testing.