Associates in Research and Education for Development, Inc.

Associates in Research and Education for Development Inc. (ARED) has provided literacy training and citizen education in Senegal for nearly twenty years. ARED’s goal is to demonstrate an effective model for bilingual education in grades 1–4 that can be adopted by the Senegalese government and supported by donors. In the past three years, ARED has developed an instructional model and materials to improve children’s learning in reading and math in grades 1–3 in two local languages. ARED has now expanded its program to reach 114 classrooms and has entered into discussions with the Senegalese Ministry of Education and donor agencies in light of recent commitments to bilingual education. With this grant, ARED would complete development and testing of its instructional model by adding modules and learning materials for early-grade math, reading, civics, and social studies instruction and also expand to 100 more classrooms. In addition, this grant would help ARED continue to build monitoring and evaluation systems and introduce new strategic communications and outreach.

Associates in Research and Education for Development Inc. has been a provider of literacy training and citizen education in Senegal for nearly twenty years and in the past two years, with the Foundation’s support, has developed an instructional model and materials for learners in first and second grade in two languages: Wolof and Pulaar. To date, the government in Senegal has only allowed the organization and other nongovernmental programs to offer their services during after-school hours; however, this year Associates in Research and Education for Development will be one of two programs that the government will allow into Senegalese classrooms to pilot its mother-tongue education instructional model during normal school hours. This grant would support that pilot testing of the organization’s model in first and second grade during the 2011–12 academic year. If successful, in 2012–13, Hewlett Foundation support would be complemented by government support for the rollout of a model in up to 100 schools in conjunction with a French government initiative to improve mother-tongue instruction in Francophone Africa.