Innovations for Poverty Action
For Evaluating A Remedial Education Program In Ghana
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Amount$250,000
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Program
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Date Awarded11/15/2010
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Term24.0 Months
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Type of SupportProject
Overview
Despite high primary enrollment rates, less than 20 percent of third graders in Ghana are proficient readers. The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), one of QEDC’s peer foundations working in the sector, has approved a $7 million grant to support Ghana’s Teacher Community Assistant Initiative, a two-year government-backed, remedial education program that Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the government have adapted from principles established by Pratham, an anchor QEDC grantee in India. This grant will leverage CIFF’s larger investment in the Initiative to helpand support Innovations infor Poverty Action to conduct a randomized evaluation of the Initiative. The evaluation will look at the extent to which the program helps improve reading and math skills among low-performing students. If the model is successful, the Ghanaian government has committed to expanding it across the country. It is also expected that the model could be adapted for other African countries with similar low achievement among primary students.
About the Grantee
Grantee Website
www.poverty-action.org
Address
101 Whitney Avenue Second Floor, New Haven, CT, 06510, United States
Grants to this Grantee
for implementing and evaluating the impact of a peer-to-peer teaching model in Kenya
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.
for evaluating a remedial primary school re-entry program in Mali
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?
for evaluating a remedial primary school re-entry program in Mali
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.
