This reference document is a companion to the Language Complexity Study conducted by RTI International under the All Children Reading–Philippines project in 2020. The study was a secondary analysis of Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) data at multiple time points, looking specifically at the effect of language complexity on reading acquisition of second and third languages (L2 and L3, respectively). The study used the 2013 and 2019 National EGRA data sets to analyze performance according to categories of language complexity based on syllabic complexity, orthographic depth, and other related items. The study was guided by the methodology described by Brunette et al. (2019), who studied the effects of language complexity on reading outcomes in Uganda. The languages selected for analysis were those among the officially supported mother tongue (MT) languages of instruction in the Philippines. Analysts assessed whether the level of complexity was in any way predictive of the average increase or decrease in L2 and L3 scores across schools as measured in 2019 (provided there were schools that reported using MT in 2019, which was not the case for three of the languages: Chavacano, Ivatan, and Sambal.

This study uses national Grade (G) 3 Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) data from 2013, when G3 students learned to read in Filipino and English rather than a mother tongue, and comparable data from 2019, when G3 students would have, according to policy, first learned to read in their mother tongue. The data were used to better understand the role of L1 complexity in L2 and L3 reading acquisition. Sample: 241 schools; 232 schools were the same in 2013 and 2019. Final sample used for analysis: 2,264 G3 students in 2019 and 2,267 G3 students in 2013. Children were assessed in Filipino (L2) and English (L3). Secondary analysis of the data set looked at reading performance and changes in reading performance according to language complexity.

Taken together, the case studies in this Report highlight the core components of an effective performance and accountability framework – a comprehensive system to optimize individual and system-wide performance through establishing outcome goals, tracking, and incentivizing progress against them The case studies show that effectiveness is not determined by implementing a set of individual policies, tools, and structures, but rather how they are collectively used to drive a culture that empowers its people to achieve a system’s ambitious agenda. The components of a performance and accountability framework that are featured in these case studies include: • System leadership that prioritizes a culture of high-performance around targets. • Outcome focused targets and supporting indicators that are well understood and communicated throughout the system, to define and quantify a system’s aspiration. • Quantitative data which is available and regularly shared across a system to gauge system performance, and to identify areas for additional focus or support. • Targeted and tailored support for system actors to help them improve performance, including a focus on specialized support for underperformers, driven by an understanding of data and evidence. • Performance routines and reporting with key system actors focused on reviewing progress, problem solving, and decision making to unlock barriers to improvement. • System engagement and site-visits/fieldwork that surfaces key challenges and opportunities to drive improvement. • Public engagement that keeps the public up to date on progress. Some of these components may require adaptation to different parts of the system. For example, targets may feature in performance agreements for senior leadership roles, but not for frontline staff who may be engaged in a more indirect way around targets (for example, communication of the reform with a focus on enhancing practice and improved outcomes). Similarly, formal performance routines that focus on a broader strategic reform are effective at driving a performance culture at senior levels, but not so for frontline staff who are rightly focused on teaching practice in their classroom. To be effective, embedding a performance and accountability culture across a system requires a nuanced and tailored application of these components to frontline staff, middle management, and senior levels.

The United States Agency for International Development's (USAID's) Bureau for Asia conducted a strategic review to examine the depth and breadth of USAID higher education (HE) programming in Asia over the five-year period from 2016 through 2021. The review highlights ways in which USAID's HE programming has been a vehicle for all sectors, not only education, to achieve USAID development objectives. The review's findings and recommendations should inform continued USAID HE investment in Asia. USAID investments in HE support the 2022 lndo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). Within USAID and the interagency, there is a growing interest in HE programming opportunities. This recognition of the role of HE in driving economic development is reflected in its inclusion in the lndo-Pacific Strategy of the United States (White House, 2022), which highlights education as key to regional economic prosperity and security, as well as regional resilience to transnational threats. Unlike in previous strategies, HE is now explicitly noted in the 2022 version of the strategy as a vehicle to advance the United States Government's (USG's) vision for a "free and open lndo-Pacific" (p. 6). This review details examples of how USAID HE investments could support the IPS by countering malign influence, strengthening democratic systems, conducting cutting-edge research to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, and building diverse and equitable partnerships between U.S. and Asian partners. USAID is forging lasting transpacific partnerships through HE investments. In 2021, this engagement included partnerships among 270 higher education institutions (HEls) from across the region and with more than 20 HEls from across the U.S. Programs are aligned with USAID's Education Policy and achieving outcomes in all USAID sectors by "advancing knowledge and research; providing quality and relevant education and workforce training; and engaging and strengthening networks and communities" (Dockser et al., 2020, p. 5) in food security and agriculture; democracy, governance, and human rights; peace and security; economic growth and workforce development; and global health. These investments are advancing locally led development, producing the next generation of leaders, laying the groundwork for more resilient economies and future trade partners, and sustainably advancing American values in a region wary of malign influence.

One-page fact sheet describing the Improving Learning Outcomes for Asia (ILOA) Activity.

Implementing mother-tongue based education in a multilingual context like the Philippines requires a full appreciation of the many languages spoken across communities and schools and among students and their teachers. DepEd’s Learner Information System which assigns a language to students when they are registered fails to capture a true picture of the languages students speak, primarily because it relies on the teacher to select the language assigned to each student. For example, in Region V, most teachers simply assign “Bikol” to their students. The USAID-funded ABC+ project deployed a computerized language identification tool in region V and VI to more accurately assess students and teachers individually and thus identify the primary and secondary languages that they speak.

Wanting to support effective learning in the early grades of school in a linguistically diverse country such as the Philippines it is important answer some basic questions, such as: • What languages do children come to school speaking? • Do children have more than one language that they can use when they start school? • What languages do teachers speak? • And how well do students’ and teachers’ languages match? Data from different sources is used to answers these questions.

POLICY BRIEF: Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE)

The purpose of this formal group panel presentation is to hold an in-depth discussion on USAID’s investments into system strengthening across Asia over the past decade and how these efforts are situated within the broader global move to focus more intentionally and coherently on education system strengthening. The panel will discuss a 2022 empirical research study (the USAID System Strengthening Review, hereafter “the Review”) conducted by two international research organizations for the USAID Asia Bureau which reviews USAID system strengthening work in 11 Asian countries. This Review offers a qualitative evidence-based analysis relevant to the field of comparative and international education (CIE) and analyzes new data collected from a desk review of relevant project documents, reports, and evaluations, key informant interviews, multi-stakeholder survey, and three deep-dive case studies in Nepal, Cambodia, and the Philippines. The group panel will include three presentations on different aspects of the Review and include discussant commentary and critique to elicit group and audience discussion. The first panel presentation discusses a theoretical framework drawn from the RISE Programme (Pritchett 2015 and Spivak 2021) and recent analysis from the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education. The Review’s central research questions are guided by these broader global trends, as well as its own analysis framework developed specifically for this study, discussed in Presentation 3. Conclusions are drawn based on this framework, and the overall discussion in Presentations 2 and 3 considers the context of USAID programming in Asia and how new knowledge provides new insights.

In 2009 the Philippines introduced a mother tongue-based multilingual education language policy requiring the “mother tongue” as the language of instruction (LOI) in kindergarten through grade 3. Using teacher classroom language data collected from four LOI groups in 2019, we compared the frequency of teachers’ use of the target LOI in different contexts, including urban versus rural classrooms, classrooms with relatively homogeneous student language backgrounds versus more heterogeneous classrooms, and classrooms with materials in the target language versus classrooms without. We also examined language usage against characteristics of the teacher populations, including language background, years of experience, training, and beliefs about the best language for initial literacy. The results strongly suggest that the most influential levers for increasing teacher usage of a designated LOI in these contexts are ensuring that teachers are assigned to schools where the LOI matches their own first language and providing teaching and learning materials in the target LOI, especially teacher’s guides. These two factors were more strongly and more consistently correlated with teacher use of the LOI than all other variables examined. The linguistic homogeneity of the student population also showed a statistically significant though lower impact on teacher language usage. This document was developed with support from the American people through the United States Agency for International Development.