Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research

Pupil Questionnaire administered to early grade students in light of the educational conditions in the CVOID-19 Pandemic in 2019.

Kindergarten Classroom Observation Student Sheet.

Kindergarten Classroom Observation Assessor Sheet.

Group administered mathematics assessment student sheet.

Group administered mathematics assessment assessor sheet.

In order to obtain feedback on and confirm the validity of the draft Early Grade Reading Assessment, RTI convened a meeting of cognitive scientists, early-grade literacy experts, research methodologists, and assessment experts to review the proposed key components of the draft assessment instruments. During the 2-day workshop, participants were charged with bridging the gap between research and practice; that is, merging advances in the reading literature and cognitive science with assessment experiences. Researchers and practitioners presented evidence on their strategies for measuring literacy acquisition within the early primary grades. In addition, they were asked to identify the key issues to consider in designing a multi-country, multi-language early grade literacy assessment protocol. The workshop, co-hosted by USAID, The World Bank, and RTI, included more than a dozen experts from a diverse group of countries, as well as some 14 observers from institutions such as USAID, the World Bank, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, George Washington University, the South Africa Ministry of Education and Plan International, among others. A detailed list of participants, including expert bios and contact information can be found in the Appendix, along with a sample invitation, workshop agenda and Round Table discussion questions.

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

The Uzbekistan Ministry of Preschool and School Education (MoPSE) has embarked upon an ambitious reform agenda to bring the Uzbek public education system in line with twenty-first century international standards and skills. This agenda is enshrined in several presidential decrees.1 The reform agenda includes numerous initiatives, including developing a new national curriculum framework and a laser focus on increasing information and communication technology and English as a foreign language skills through the IT Nation and English-Speaking Nation initiatives. Reform efforts also include participating for the first time in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) in 2021 and in the Program for International Student Assessment in 2022 (PISA). MoPSE has committed to reaching a PIRLS ranking of 30 or higher by 2030, but reform takes time and challenges persist. At the onset of the Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program (UEEP), the teaching culture in many schools in Uzbekistan was still quite teacher-centric, with only a modicum of observable student-centered instructional strategies promoting critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. Basic reading and mathematics scores were within the international mean, but students struggled with reading comprehension and more complex mathematics.

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.

Children need a strong foundation in learning to succeed in their education and life. Yet, by the age of 10 years, nearly 9 out of 10 children in SSA cannot do basic mathematics. There is an urgent need to learn from success stories like the Ganitha Kalika Andolana (GKA) program in India to accelerate results in numeracy to ensure that every child is ready to succeed at school. This findings brief (one of six from the Numeracy at Scale study) discussed the key successes from the program to provide policy makers and development practitioners with evidence-based strategies for improving instruction and learning in numeracy