This article in The Economist cites RTI researcher Benjamin Piper, and an article he co-authored with RTI colleague Timothy Slade on summer learning loss in Malawi. "Benjamin Piper, of RTI International, an American research institute, suspects that the scale of summer learning loss may be worse in the developing world, where it has largely gone unnoticed and unstudied. In rural areas in particular, reading material can be hard to come by and some children still spend their holidays helping their families in the fields. A study Mr Piper co-authored in 2017, on Malawian children taking part in an American-funded literacy programme, may be the only one on summer learning loss in sub-Saharan Africa. It found that the loss was almost as big as the gains the literacy programme generated during the school year. Mr Piper says that international donors, who spent $1.4bn on basic education aid in Africa in 2015, risk “losing what they invested”."

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Tara Weatherholt. A current challenge in the equitable access to quality pre-primary education for young children is the current lack of relevant and reliable data on pre-primary education to inform improvement of the education sector in developing country contexts. In 2015, the global Measuring Early Learning and Quality Outcomes (MELQO) initiative was formed by UNICEF, UNESCO, the World Bank, and the Brookings Institution to focus on facilitating feasible, accurate, and useful measurement of young pupils’ development at the start of primary school as well as the quality of pre-primary learning environments, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The first nationally representative school readiness study utilizing the MELQO suite of instruments was recently completed in Tanzania. This presentation will report on the quality of pre-primary education environments in both Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, as found through the national MELQO study conducted in early 2017, and how this may inform sector improvement.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Rehemah Nabacwa. This evaluation looks at a large scale reading program in Uganda using a randomized control trial to look at the impact of the School Health and Reading (SHRP) program. This study combines a rigorous external evaluation methodology with the use of a range of 12 different language-specific literacy assessments applied in the 12 languages and communities supported by SHRP. We conclude that significant reading gains are possible in complex, large scale mother tongue reading programs, even within the complex language settings of Uganda. The findings point to language complexity as an important predictor of reading acquisition.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Peter Muyingo. Education programming worldwide is beginning to include dedicated activities to support a positive school culture. There is evidence, mostly from high income countries, that a positive school climate is associated with improved learning outcomes and attendance, and reduced violence prevalence. In this presentation we will discuss some of the challenges we faced in adapting a school climate survey from the United States for use in an impact study for a program in Uganda that has a dedicated focus on building a positive school climate. The school climate survey was adapted as one of a variety of instruments to be used in the impact evaluation of the USAID/Uganda funded Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity. This Activity, a working partnership with the Uganda Ministry of Education, focuses on improving early grade reading and retention in 28 districts and 2698 schools in Uganda.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Katherine Merseth and Manar Shukri. The Minister of Education has requested that USAID Early Grades Reading and mathematics Project (RAMP) assist the Ministry of Education (MoE) to assess the overall KG situation in Jordan and to develop recommendations for how the Government of Jordan can expand quality kindergarten (specifically, the second year of kindergarten, or KG2) to serve all 5year old children by 2025. In response to the need, RAMP is conducting a study of KG2 with the objective of enabling the MoE to equitably expand and improve KG2.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Matthew Jukes. There is an increased demand for assessments of social and emotional competencies of young children in low- and middle-income countries. These competencies are increasingly seen as important for children’s development and for their education. In the context of preschool and primary education, such assessments have a number of uses. They are used to evaluate the impact of programs on children’s social and emotional learning. They can also be used to monitoring individual children’s progress in such programs and to tailor interventions to their needs. We developed a tool to assess aspects of SEL that are important for children’s education in Tanzania. Using this work as a case study, we describe the challenges inherent in developing such a tool. The tool was developed as part of the USAID Tusome Pamoja preschool program in Mtwara, Southern Tanzania.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Matthew Jukes. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been used increasingly in an effort to reduce uncertainty and improve rigour of impact estimates. However, RCTs do not provide certainty in other important aspects of the evaluation, such as its external validity and in understanding which components of a complex program are essential for its effectiveness. This paper reviews two additional approaches which are currently underutilized which may help researchers and policy makers make better use of uncertain evidence.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Amber Gove and Helen Jang. The Early Grade Reading Barometer offers a wealth of actionable Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) data to help to change the lives of young children. With 40 datasets from 19 places, the Barometer supports data transparency. The Barometer is designed for USAID education officers, policy makers, education staff in host countries, implementation partners, education researchers, and practitioners. It is designed primarily for users who may have limited knowledge about early grade reading, and no or little sophisticated statistical knowledge. This presentation was an interactive demonstration of the Barometer, highlighting the vast amount of data available to the public and how the information can be used to improve learning outcomes.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Amber Gove. With few exceptions (Aboud & Hossain, 2011; Gertler et al., 2013), much of the published research on the impact of preprimary participation stems from high-income countries (Campbell et al., 2014; Heckman, Moon, Pinto, Savelyev, & Yavitz, 2010). Few studies have examined preschool and later learning across multiple countries (Raikes, Devercelli, & Kutaka, 2015). This paper seeks to fill this gap by examining the relationship between preprimary participation and early primary reading outcomes, as measured by Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) (Dubeck & Gove, 2015; RTI International, 2016). Drawing on a unique set of data using student-level learning assessments from sixteen low and middle income countries, we use preprimary participation to explain primary reading outcomes.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Luis Crouch. Given the prominence of learning and quality in the SDGs, much discussion has gone into how to measure in a manner that is reasonably comparable. Some have argued (or feared) that this would necessitate a single, dominant, global assessment. Aside from the political or ethical acceptability of this kind of imposition, one has to wonder how meaningful this could be, psychometrically or pedagogically. The paper will argue that unless one were to increase the cost of assessment tremendously, or make children sit through lengthy assessments or until highly adaptive computerized assessments can be used, a single or a few dominant assessments are an unlikely approach. Instead, a variety of assessments is a more likely solution. These might have better psychometric “resolution” for poorer countries with greater cognitive inequality than the OECD countries, might be closer to the children’s actual levels, and might be psychometrically more reliable if done properly. The ability to make the results comparable or equitable in some sense need not be lost, however, if some sort of universal learning scale is created, so that countries can peg themselves, with reasonable rigorous, to that scale. A global neutral arbiter can “sponsor” the scale and compile country-based reports using it.