The overall aim of the USAID/SA basic education program is to improve primary grade reading outcomes by building teacher effectiveness and strengthening classroom and school management. This is being accomplished through support to innovative, local interventions that have a demonstrated capacity for scale-up. The main USAID/SA program is the School Capacity and Innovation Program (SCIP), which also leverages significant private sector resources, amplifying the impact of USAID’s investment in the South African education system. SCIP is co-funded by The ELMA Foundation and J.P. Morgan and designed in collaboration with the South African Department of Basic Education. SCIP supports local South African models or interventions that work directly with teachers and school management teams in innovative ways in order to improve their practice as instructional leaders and managers. SCIP is aligned to the USAID Global Education Strategy (2011–2015) which supports interventions to improve learning outcomes with a focus on primary grade reading as a measure of performance. In addition to seeking initiatives that demonstrate innovation and impact, sustainability and scalability are key components of the SCIP program. The Strengthening Teaching of Early Language and Literacy (STELLAR) Program improves the language and literacy skills of Grade R children from disadvantaged communities in South Africa by training and supporting Grade R teachers. Grade R (also called the Reception Year) is the year of schooling before Grade 1.

The USAID/Kenya Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) initiative is a task order under the USAID Education Data for Decision Making (EdData II) project that operates in collaboration with the Kenyan Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) and USAID/Kenya, and implemented by RTI International. The program is a randomized controlled trial intervention that included formal (public or government) schools and low-cost private schools (LCPS) located in Nairobi, Kiambu, Nakuru and Kisumu counties. PRIMR and its Kenyan partners created, published, and distributed new teaching and learning materials, based on the existing Kenyan curriculum; designed and led professional development to build the skills of educators and improve student literacy outcomes; and introduced a number of innovative teaching methods. Teachers and head teachers received training to encourage active learning and participation by both girls and boys in the classroom and were further supported with frequent visits and advising by trained instructional coaches. By mutual agreement among the MoEST, USAID, and RTI, approximately 500 formal schools and LCPSs located in Nairobi, Kiambu, Nakuru, and Kisumu counties were to participate in the PRIMR Initiative. To choose the sample of formal schools, the project team first selected all eligible zones from within the selected locations, then randomly assigned a subset of zones to groups that would receive the PRIMR treatment in phases (Cohorts 1, 2, and 3). Across all three cohorts, 262 formal schools were selected. Sampling for LCPSs began by clustering the schools into geographic groups of either 10 or 15 schools from across Nairobi’s divisions. Twenty clusters then were randomly assigned to Cohorts 1, 2, or 3, stratified by geographic region. The number of LCPSs selected was 240. In January 2012, the Cohort 1 schools (125 schools: 66 public, 59 LCPS) began implementing the reading interventions using PRIMR-designed materials and techniques, and the math intervention followed beginning in July 2012. The Cohort 2 schools (185: 65 public, 120 LCPS) began reading and math interventions in January 2013. Cohort 3 schools (101: 51 public, 50 LCPS) served as a control group for most of the program, and then began receiving the full intervention during the final stages of PRIMR (January 2014). In addition, it was decided that the 2014 phase of the intervention would be extended to all 547 remaining schools, rather than only to Cohort 3 as originally planned. As a result, the number of pupils benefitting increased from 12,755 in January 2012 to 56,036 in January 2014. Randomly selected students from all treatment and control schools were assessed via administration of a combined Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA), and Snapshot of School Management Effectiveness (SSME) at three time points: baseline, midterm, and endline. The PRIMR Initiative’s research design included several “experiments within an experiment.” These consisted of a study of three different combinations of information and communication technology (ICT) as teaching and learning aids in selected schools in Kisumu County; a longitudinal study of about 600 students who were assessed at all three time points, with their reading and numeracy competency levels compared and contrasted across the assessments; and MoEST-driven policy research on various education issues at the national level.

Education for Marginalized Children in Kenya (EMACK) is an initiative of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The original EMACK project was initiated in 2006 to increase quality educational opportunities for pre-primary, primary, and lower secondary school children who had been historically marginalized by cultural practices and poverty in Coast Province (CP), North Eastern Province (NEP), and informal settlements of Nairobi. From 2006 to 2012, as a part of the EMACK project, AKF developed and implemented a package of interventions focused on learner engagement and achievement at the classroom level in order to improve learning outcomes and learner transitions from pre-primary to lower secondary school. By 2012, EMACK had reached 767 informal and formal schools in 23 districts across Nairobi, CP, and NEP, benefitting nearly 425,000 people, including 400,000 children (215,426 boys and 183,706 girls), 4,000 teachers, and 11,000 orphans and vulnerable children. In 2012 EMACK refocused its interventions towards building improved readiness of children (before and as they enter primary school) and ensuring schools, especially the lower primary standards (standards 1 through 3) are ready to support children’s learning and development. This refocus, EMACK II, complements the USAID education strategy (April 2011 – 2015) and has been developed by AKF in collaboration with USAID. The overall goal of the re-aligned EMACK II (Oct 2012-Sept 2014) program is to “enhance equitable access and improve learning outcomes in Kiswahili, English and Mathematics for children in primary grades 1, 2 & 3. To achieve the re-aligned EMACK II goal, AKF identified the following four revised strategic objectives (SOs): 1. Improved teaching and learning in Kiswahili, English and mathematics in primary grades1, 2 and 3 in target areas of CP, NEP and the informal settlements of Nairobi directly benefiting over 269,000 children attending 800 schools (formal and informal). 2. Improved effectiveness, efficiency and accountability of school management, and improved parents’ and communities’ participation to support reading outcomes in primary grades1, 2 and 3 in CP, NEP and the informal settlements of Nairobi in 800 schools (formal and informal). 3. Strengthened MOE delivery systems at the cluster and district levels to enhance learning outcomes in Kiswahili, English and mathematics in primary grades1, 2 and 3 at the national level, in 8 counties [4 in CP, 1 in Nairobi, and 3 in NEP], and in 28 districts [14 in CP, 2 in Nairobi, and 12 in NEP]. 4. Increased equitable access to education for 120,000 children in crisis and conflict environments in specific areas of CP, NEP, and the informal settlements of Nairobi. AKF plans to achieve these through improving the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, establishing a cadre of trained trainers, and education officials as well as increasing the engagement and participation of the parents and communities so they become more accountable, effective and efficient in providing sustained support to the lower primary (grades 1, 2 and 3) education.

Strengthening Early Grade Reading (SEGREM) was a three-year USAID Malawi-funded activity aimed at improving literacy levels of learners in Chiradzulu, Dedza, and Mchinji districts. The Program reviewed existing supplementary readers to be used in standards 1-4. It also used literacy instruction, teacher training and community mobilization models that have been tested in Malawi and have helped to improve literacy levels of learners, improve large class management, provide quality and relevant supplementary readers, and ensure community support. In January 2015, a baseline study was conducted to determine the baseline on the student reading abilities. During the reading assessment, learners were asked to name letters of the alphabet, identify initial sounds, read familiar words, read a passage and answer comprehension questions orally; for Chichewa, learners were also asked to read syllables.

As originally conceived, the Jamaica Basic Education Project aimed to improve student performance in reading and mathematics in grades 1-3, strengthen accountability in the primary education system through use of measurement tools and establishment of standards, and build regional capacity for school management oversight. From early 2010 through spring of 2012, the project was implemented in 250 schools throughout all six Ministry of Education (MOE) regions. Among the schools originally targeted for project intervention were 54 schools in crime-prone communities, which received additional resources through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), including books and computers. In contrast to previous USAID-funded projects since 1998, the current project did not have a direct presence in the schools themselves. Rather, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the project and the MOE, as well as terms of reference (TOR) between the project and the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC), devolved much of the responsibility for teacher training to the JTC, and the responsibility for the monitoring of school-based project implementation to the MOE. Underlying this model—and in line with the current USAID Forward objective of building the capacity of countries to lead their own development—was the logic that the MOE and its associated agencies would be in a position to assume progressively more responsibility for project implementation. In accordance with the project design, project staff collaborated with JTC to train a small group of trainers, made up of retired teachers and other educational specialists. These trainers then trained principals and “resource teachers” in workshops facilitated by regional education officers. Resource teachers then returned to their home schools and trained their colleagues (referred to in this evaluation as “non-resource teachers”), so that all the teachers in the 250 project schools could implement the project-promoted teaching techniques in their classrooms. This model of training, known as the “cascade model,” is intended to build the capacity of the education system at all levels, while also reaching a large number of teachers with a relatively small number of direct, project-run trainings.

This data file contains student, teacher, and headteacher data from the project's 2015 baseline. The Tusome Early Grade Reading Program involves a national effort in Kenya to scale up a proven model for improved results in early grade literacy. Based on positive findings during a rigorous impact evaluation of a pilot test of this intervention, the Government of Kenya (GOK) asked USAID/Kenya to assist with the nationwide rollout of an activity to improve reading skills and increase the capacity of educators and the GOK to deliver and administer early grade reading (EGR) programs modeled on the pilot activity’s success. Tusome, which means “Let’s Read” in Kiswahili, targeted 28,000 formal and nonformal public and low-cost private primary schools in the 47 counties in Kenya (nationwide). About 1,000 of these are informal schools that exist mostly in urban “slums,” while the vast majority of the remaining 27,000 schools are in rural areas. Roughly 5.4 million children who entered primary school between 2014 and 2017 are expected to benefit from this scaling-up initiative. Intermediate beneficiaries include: 1) approximately 60,000 class 1 and 2 teachers, 2) 28,000 primary school head teachers, 3) 1,052 Teacher Advisory Center (TAC) tutors, plus “coaches” for nonformal schools and 4) 300 senior education personnel. Tusome also assisted the GOK at the technical and policy levels to sustainably improve reading skills beyond the span of the activity.

Read Philippines or Basa Pilipinas was a four-year early grade reading project that operated from January 2013 to December 2016 and supported the Philippine Department of Education’s national reading program. Basa assisted the implementation of transformative literacy practices in selected divisions of Regions 1 and 7 by providing teacher and student materials, training teachers and school heads, and providing post-training support for Grade 1, 2 and 3 teachers, as well as providing Early Language, Literacy and Numeracy training to kindergarten teachers. The Basa Pilipinas activity used a quasi-experimental cross-sectional design to evaluate the impact of the treatment in improving reading and comprehension skills. Sampling was conducted at three levels: school, classrooms, and student. The school sample was drawn randomly from the activity’s five provinces. Within each school, one grade 2 classroom was selected randomly for baseline and midline with an additional grade 3 classroom selected during the endline. Within each classroom, students were randomly selected to be administered the assessment. A total of 469 students were sample from 40 schools in two provinces at the baseline (comparison), 1,216 students were sampled from 80 schools in five provinces at the midline (intervention 1), and 1,658 students were sampled from 5 provinces at the endline (intervention 2). The disparity in the number of provinces sampled is due to the expansion of the intervention from two provinces to five provinces starting at the midline to provide a more complete picture of the Basa outcomes. To enable the computation of estimates of literacy skills among students in all schools affected by the Basa intervention, design weights were applied to the analyses of EGRA data. Design weights were applied to compensate for differences in provincial sampling and to ensure an appropriate representation of learners in all provinces in the sample.

The Malawi Early Grade Reading Activity (MEGRA) is a multifaceted educational development approach intended to enable sustained literacy among children, promote a literate community, and help the country increase economic growth and reduce poverty. The USAID/Malawi funded program was implemented starting August of 2013, by RTI (Research Triangle Institute) International. The MEGRA educational program was implemented alongside a Feed the Future project called Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC) and a Global Health Initiative project called Support for Service Delivery Integration (SSDI), both of which were also expected to affect the success of learners in school. Through this interconnected strategy, USAID/Malawi aimed to have a greater impact on outcomes of interest (such as learning reading scores) than would otherwise be possible through one project alone. The key elements of the MEGRA reading intervention involved: • Conduct teacher training, including practicums • Provide scripted lesson plans to teachers • Provide in-service teacher support and mentoring (or coaching) • Provide rewards for high-performing teachers and schools • Develop and distribute books, story cards, letter cards, and bookshelves • Organize reading fairs and other events to engage parents, caregivers, and the community in learner learning • Invite parents to participate in their learners’ classrooms and/or become engaged in extracurricular activities • Ensure a supportive policy environment by attending the Basic Education Technical Working Group and writing Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) to gain necessary Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology(MoEST) support and buy-in • Facilitate the extension of school instructional time In order to test possible complementary or multiplier effects of the MEGRA reading intervention and the INVC and SSDI activities, all three interventions were implemented in and evaluated for four distinct treatment levels: • Treatment Level 1: Three focus districts (Balaka, Machinga, and Lilongwe Rural) that provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of a fully-integrated development approach with multiple activities across sectors, including MEGRA, INVC, and SSDI, on early grade reading outcomes. • Treatment Level 2: The district (Salima) where MEGRA overlaps with only the SSDI intervention. This serves as a test ground for the hypothesis that synergies between education and health initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 3: The district (Ntcheu) where MEGRA overlaps with only the INVC intervention. This serves as a test ground for the development hypothesis that synergies between education and agricultural livelihood and nutrition initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 4: Five districts (Blantyre Rural, Mzimba North, Ntchisi, Thyolo, and Zomba Rural) that only receive the MEGRA initiative. These districts are used to test the MEGRA theory of change that education support leads to improved literacy and general education outcomes. MEGRA was implemented at the zonal level, at baseline in 2013, where zones were randomly selected in each of the four levels to implement the MEGRA intervention (taking into account areas where INVC and SSDI were already working). However, since INVC and SSDI were not randomly assigned at baseline, the evaluation can only be able to determine whether EGRA is better than no EGRA and whether EGRA plus INVC and SSDI is better than no treatment. While MEGRA expected to include both treatment and comparison schools in each district at each level, at baseline, it was unable to because the SSDI and INVC activities were already underway. As such, the program found that in the Level 2 district, Salima, it was impossible to select comparison zones that were not already contaminated with the SSDI intervention because SSDI was already work

The Ethiopia TEACH II activity aimed to strengthen the provision of equitable basic education services by implementing alternative basic education for children and youth, functional literacy for adults and improving the capacity of Woreda Education Offices (WEO) to manage non-formal educational programs. The activity operated in eight regions and provided instruction in four languages. The target population of the study were Level II learners from selected woredas in the SNNP, Tigray, Amhara, Benishangul, Oromia, Afar, Gambella, and Somali regions where PACT-Ethiopia and its partners operated. Students were randomly selected to measure basic literacy skills targeted at the Grade 2 level using EGRA assessments in eight different languages. The EGRA assessment sub-tasks measuring basic literacy skills were incremental in their complexity. Each sub-task was presented to the child on a one–to-one basis. Questionnaires were also administered to understand the background of the students. This data file contains the project's 2013 baseline EGRA.

The Malawi Early Grade Reading Activity (MEGRA) is a multifaceted educational development approach intended to enable sustained literacy among children, promote a literate community, and help the country increase economic growth and reduce poverty. The USAID/Malawi funded program was implemented starting August of 2013, by RTI (Research Triangle Institute) International. The MEGRA educational program was implemented alongside a Feed the Future project called Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC) and a Global Health Initiative project called Support for Service Delivery Integration (SSDI), both of which were also expected to affect the success of learners in school. Through this interconnected strategy, USAID/Malawi aimed to have a greater impact on outcomes of interest (such as learning reading scores) than would otherwise be possible through one project alone. The key elements of the MEGRA reading intervention involved: • Conduct teacher training, including practicums • Provide scripted lesson plans to teachers • Provide in-service teacher support and mentoring (or coaching) • Provide rewards for high-performing teachers and schools • Develop and distribute books, story cards, letter cards, and bookshelves • Organize reading fairs and other events to engage parents, caregivers, and the community in learner learning • Invite parents to participate in their learners’ classrooms and/or become engaged in extracurricular activities • Ensure a supportive policy environment by attending the Basic Education Technical Working Group and writing Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) to gain necessary Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology(MoEST) support and buy-in • Facilitate the extension of school instructional time In order to test possible complementary or multiplier effects of the MEGRA reading intervention and the INVC and SSDI activities, all three interventions were implemented in and evaluated for four distinct treatment levels: • Treatment Level 1: Three focus districts (Balaka, Machinga, and Lilongwe Rural) that provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of a fully-integrated development approach with multiple activities across sectors, including MEGRA, INVC, and SSDI, on early grade reading outcomes. • Treatment Level 2: The district (Salima) where MEGRA overlaps with only the SSDI intervention. This serves as a test ground for the hypothesis that synergies between education and health initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 3: The district (Ntcheu) where MEGRA overlaps with only the INVC intervention. This serves as a test ground for the development hypothesis that synergies between education and agricultural livelihood and nutrition initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 4: Five districts (Blantyre Rural, Mzimba North, Ntchisi, Thyolo, and Zomba Rural) that only receive the MEGRA initiative. These districts are used to test the MEGRA theory of change that education support leads to improved literacy and general education outcomes. MEGRA was implemented at the zonal level, at baseline in 2013, where zones were randomly selected in each of the four levels to implement the MEGRA intervention (taking into account areas where INVC and SSDI were already working). However, since INVC and SSDI were not randomly assigned at baseline, the evaluation can only be able to determine whether EGRA is better than no EGRA and whether EGRA plus INVC and SSDI is better than no treatment. While MEGRA expected to include both treatment and comparison schools in each district at each level, at baseline, it was unable to because the SSDI and INVC activities were already underway. As such, the program found that in the Level 2 district, Salima, it was impossible to select comparison zones that were not already contaminated with the SSDI intervention because SSDI was already working across the entire di