Presentations

The USAID-funded Uganda School Health and Reading Program (SHRP), implemented by RTI International, has been training teachers in Early Grade Reading (EGR) methods since early 2013. Up until 2018, all SHRP program in-service teacher trainings had been conducted through large-scale, residential trainings hosted at primary teacher colleges (PTCs). In May, 2018, SHRP piloted smaller scale teacher refresher trainings which were non-residential by conducting the trainings at coordinating center (CC) schools where teachers could travel to and from the training site to home each day. In order to learn the effect of these smaller, closer trainings compared to the traditional residential model, the SHRP team designed action research to determine if the smaller trainings held closer to the schools at CCs are more effective, or at least as effective, as the larger trainings in terms of teacher attendance, content coverage, teacher learning, and teacher satisfaction. This CIES 2019 presentation shares major findings and recommendations to action.

Under the Tusome-Nakuru County Youth Bunge Forum (NCYBF), the program sought to engage the youth in improving early literacy skills among Grades 1-3 children in Nakuru County in Kenya. The Nakuru County Youth Bunge Forum (NCYBF) signed a memorandum of agreement with the local public library, the Kenya National Library Services (KNLS), Nakuru Branch to provide enhanced literacy activities. This CIES 2019 presentation will share the outcomes of the partnership, the effect on children’s literacy skills and the long term benefits to the program implementation and its sustainability.

The Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity is USAID’s flagship education program in Kenya. This CIES 2019 presentation shares the findings from research currently in progress to analyze Tusome’s 2017 lesson observation data, and shares lessons learned from: designing a coaching program to operate at scale; effectively combining incentives and sanctions to drive coaching activities; and effectively combining automated, moderately high-tech data pipelines with qualitative, low-tech feedback on coaching of coaches.

There is an abundance of research about the costs of measuring the SDGs. Institutions with the mandate to measure the SDGs are busy estimating costs and making plans to improve both reporting and capacity within countries. However, some observers and commentators are skeptical about the benefits of measurement. This CIES 2019 presentation takes a “value of information” approach to calculating the benefits of having and using information by asking: what is the social (monetary) benefit of running an education system with full information versus running the same education system with only limited information?

The USAID/Uganda School Health and Reading Program (SHRP) works through existing Ministry systems to provide reading instruction in 12 local languages and English to over 3,000 primary schools. A major focus of the program has been on increasing the use of evidence to inform programs and improve performance. This CIES 2019 presentation highlights examples of program support to the Ministry to take the lead in information generation to increase “buy in” of results and, ultimately, action.

In this CIES 2019 presentation, Rachel Jordan presents how Tangerine Tutor is used to conduct and improve upon classroom observations in the USAID Uganda School Health and Reading Program.

This presentation unpacks findings from a seven-country teacher professional development study, presented by Dr. Benjamin Piper and Jessica Mejia at CIES 2019.

At CIES 2019, Dr. Benjamin Piper reflected on the use of experimental and implementation research to inform the scale-up and success of the USAID Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity in Kenya.

This presentation shares findings from a longitudinal study of the Kenya Tayari program, examining whether ECD effects persisted into primary school, presented by Dr. Benjamin Piper at CIES 2019.

Findings on the impact of the Tusome intervention and language of instruction on refugee learners in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, presented by Dr. Benjamin Piper at CIES 2019.