The PALME project (Partenariat pour l’Amélioration de la Lecture et des Mathématiques à l’Ecole Elémentaire) reflects national priorities for education development and is a central program of PAQUET, the new national Education Sector Plan 2012-2025 (Programme d’ Amélioration de la Qualité, de l’Equité et de la Transparence). PALME seeks to improve the reading and math learning outcomes of primary school students in Senegal. It illustrates two major shifts in the government policy agenda: a) away from access to education to a focus on the quality of learning, and b) the move away from individual donor projects to government leadership and use of government systems for bi-lateral and multi-lateral financing.

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.

The Early Grade Reading program in Ghana, implemented under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Partnership for Education Learning Activity, was evaluated with a quasi-experimental impact evaluation between 2017 and 2019. This data asset contains the three waves of data collected in Ghana during this time period.

The USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project (PRP) was conceived by USAID and the Government of Pakistan to address the reading deficit in Pakistani schools. PRP aims to improve children’s Urdu and Sindhi reading skills in grades 1 and 2 and through pilot interventions improve reading in Pashto. Project focus areas are Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJ&K), Balochistan, Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Sindh. This data asset contains the data from the Read Foundation Evaluation Survey carried out in the Pakistan Reading Project intervention regions including Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) in 2017 and 2019. The sampling designed called for a two-stage cluster sample. In the first stage, sample schools were selected from the available READ Foundation’s school population. Four districts were randomly selected from AJK along with two of GB (Gilgit and Astore), where the READ Foundation has its schools. Schools were elected as per available proportion. The ratio of rural/urban & summer/winter schools from the available district school population was also considered. In the second stage, 15 students from grade one and 15 from grade two were randomly selected within each selected sampled school. Respective grade level teachers were also interviewed and their teaching practices were also observed during the lesson delivery in the classrooms. The data were collected at two different stages of project implementation. Firstly as the baseline and secondly, after two years as end-line, when the students received complete two years of treatment. The study data is split into three datasets. The dataset 1 includes the data about student EGRA scores and interview questions about reading practices at school and home/community. Dataset 2 includes the data of teacher questionnaire and dataset 3 includes teacher classroom observations regarding teachers’ teaching practices in the classroom.

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, 2011 (PIRLS 2011), is part of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) program. PIRLS 2011 (https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pirls/) is a cross-sectional study that provides international comparative information of the reading literacy of fourth-grade students and examines factors that may be associated with the acquisition of reading literacy in young students. The study was conducted using questionnaires and direct assessments of fourth-grade students. In the United States a total of 370 schools and 12,726 fourth-grade students participated in 2011. The final weighted student response rate was 96 percent and the final weighted school response rate was 85 percent. The overall weighted response rate was 81 percent. Key statistics produced from PIRLS 2011 are how well fourth-grade students read, how students in one country compare with students in another country, how much fourth-grade students value and enjoy reading, and internationally, how the reading habits and attitudes of students vary.