Innovations for Poverty Action

Many first, second, and third graders in Kenya are struggling to learn to read. This grant to Innovations for Poverty Action would continue to support the evaluation of a simple, low-cost method to improve reading achievement in which sixth graders tutor second and third graders to help them become more fluent readers.

The grant to Innovations for Poverty Action to evaluate Speed Schools, a particular instructional model in Mali, represents a convergence of QEDC investments and strategies: local capacity building and rigorous assessment. This grant will answer the questions whether and why Speed Schools work as well or better than government schools and, if so, why?

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is evaluating Speed Schools in Mali supported by a March 2012 grant from the Foundation. Speed Schools compress the first three years of primary school into one year and bring out-of-school rural children and youth into fourth grade in government schools. IPA used census data to find out-of-school children. The data were inaccurate and this supplemental grant supports IPA’s unanticipated costs to re-survey and re-test in communities with sufficient numbers of out-of-school children. The communities in this study are not affected by the conflict in northern Mali; nevertheless IPA and the Foundation are closely monitoring the situation and developing contingency plans in case the situation deteriorates.