The information and communication technology (ICT) baseline assessment measured current competency of grades 9, 10, and 11 students on the Program-developed materials that include standards, teacher guides, and use of the ICT student textbooks (STB). The Program customized the STB for Uzbekistan from an internationally sourced series of ICT materials originating from Cambridge University Press. The assessment was conducted with students across these three grades in two distinct regions (Namangan and Sirdaryo) of Uzbekistan.

To evaluate the impact of the Program’s reading and mathematics components, baseline Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessments (EGRA and EGMA, respectively) were conducted in November and December 2021. Overall, 1,623 grade 3 and 1,629 grade 5 students from 140 Program schools participated in the EGRA/EGMA baseline. Their performance will be compared over time as these schools receive reading and mathematics interventions for the first time. The EGRA/EGMA baseline was originally planned to assess students completing grades 2 and 4 at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, in May 2020. However, the assessment was postponed because of COVID-19. A decision was made to assess grades 3 and 5 students at the beginning of the school year in November–December 2021, as proxies for students completing grades 2 and 4.

To evaluate the impact of the Program’s reading and mathematics components on student learning, this report will compare results from the endline assessment against the values from the baseline assessment. The baseline Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessments (EGRA and EGMA, respectively) were conducted in November and December 2021. The endline was administered in May 2023.

The goal of this study was to learn whether and how teachers in grades 2 and 4 were using the new ULA and Mathematics TG and STBs and applying the SCSs therein. The study consisted of two phases. The Program used Phase 1 results and ensuing recommendations to inform the development and finalization of materials and ongoing TPD efforts. Phase 2 results served to determine whether teachers became more proficient over time in their application of the SCSs embedded in the TGs.

This information and communication technology (ICT) assessment measured the competency of 1,244 grade 9, 10, and 11 students from the beginning to the end of the 2022–2023 school year in two regions. This longitudinal study measured the impact of student learning outcomes over the course of a year. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program conducted a baseline assessment at the beginning of the school year in September 2022 and an endline assessment at the end of the school year in May 2023. These assessments included a knowledge examination of the content of newly introduced ICT standards and textbooks. The examination was based on standards and proficiency was defined as 78%, 79%, and 77% correct responses in the assessment for grades 9, 10, and 11 respectively by the subject matter specialists in ICT. Additionally, to better measure the progress during the early years of implementation of the new curriculum, the Program also set intermediate proficiency levels at 50%, 40%, and 40% for grades 9, 10, and 11 respectively.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program, implemented by RTI International, conducted the Teaching and Learning Material (TLM) Uptake Study to inform immediate- and medium-term revisions to the TLMs developed by both the Program and the Ministry of Preschool and School Education (MoPSE). This desk review forms part of the TLM Uptake Study. Under the desk review, we evaluated the quality of the teacher guides (TGs) and student textbooks (STBs) developed for the Uzbek Language Arts (ULA) and Mathematics courses for grades 1–4 during the piloting of these materials in schools.

In November 2018, the Republic of Uzbekistan Ministry of Preschool and School Education (MoPSE) announced its Information Technology Nation initiative, which is aimed at producing graduates with the ability to work in cyber security, software development and testing, network administration, graphic design, animation, and game design. To achieve these outcomes, the public education system began addressing a series of critical constraints, including access to information and communication technology (ICT) hardware and broadband access at the school level, time allocated to ICT classes, and outdated standards and curriculum for ICT education, which should better reflect assessments of ICT skills and current labor market and university demands.

The U.S. Agency for International Development’s Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program supported the Ministry to review the standards and curriculum, a supportive teacher professional approach, and piloting to enhance ICT instruction. The Program mobilized local experts from the Republican Education Center and international experts from Mississippi State University’s International Institute and Center for Cyber Education to begin the process by developing standards for grades 1–11 for ICT education. ICT standards development is a major step toward Uzbekistan’s vision of producing graduates with critical thinking, problem-solving, and practical skills that will enable them to succeed. This brief provides an overview of the development and review of ICT student learning standards and scopes and sequences.

With a modern, robust new curriculum carefully prepared by local and international experts to meet the needs of Uzbekistan’s students, how would the Ministry of Preschool and School Education (MoPSE) ensure the effectiveness of textbooks and teacher guides in the classroom? The new teaching and learning materials (TLMs) created and customized by the USAID-funded Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program in partnership with the MoPSE were developed through a multi-step, participatory process. Input from international experts and Uzbekistan primary teachers and academics grounded the modern methods and practices in the local context. To evaluate the use and value of these TLMs for students and educators, the Program led an extensive pilot initiative.

The Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program led the development of a groundbreaking curriculum based on international best practices and contributions from local experts. The approach was rooted in a theory of change that identified long-term goals (outcomes) and the interconnecting outputs and conditions to achieve them. In collaboration with the Uzbekistan Ministry of Preschool and School Education (MoPSE), the Program developed education standards, scope and sequences, new textbooks and teacher guides, and continuous professional development training for educators in pilot schools among other activities and products. Throughout this process, the Program sought to test the theory of change, fill critical gaps in knowledge about the Uzbek educational system, and determine what kind of research would be most responsive to this breadth of interventions and the complex nature of classroom dynamics.