Baseline assessment of school readiness program using a quasi-experimental design in Gujarat
Client: Central Square Foundation (CSF)
Location: Surat and Narmada, Gujarat
Background Context: ‘School readiness’ and enabling children to be ‘ready for school’, has gained currency in the last few decades and is globally defined by two features – ‘transition’ and ‘gaining competencies’. To enable school readiness among students, in Gujarat, UNICEF with support from CSF piloted a school readiness program named School Transition Program (STP), introduced in the first month of Grade 1, as a part of the Activity Based Learning Program (ABL), being implemented in the state. The program was designed to equip students with the necessary pre-literacy, pre-numeracy and motor skills to effectively start the ABL program.
Objectives
Development Solutions was commissioned to evaluate the program and assess change in school readiness among students who attended the program. To enable this, a baseline assessment was undertaken in June-July 2018 to measure levels of school readiness among students in grade 1 in Gujarat, based on their numeracy, language and cognitive development.
Approach and Methodology
- Method/ Design: Quasi-experimental study design used to evaluate the effect of the School Transition Program by comparing school readiness (defined by performance across various competencies) among students undergoing the STP (intervention) and those who are not (control). A baseline was conducted prior to the start of the program to establish the ‘performance’ of students in pre-literacy and language concepts, cognitive and conceptual concepts and pre-math and number concepts.
- Key Respondents/ Informants: Students
- Key Areas of Inquiry: Learning outcomes, school readiness among children, given their performance on: (a) Pre-math and number concepts (b) Cognitive and conceptual concepts and (c) Pre-literacy and language concepts.
- Sample: 99 Intervention Schools (49 in Surat and 50 in Narmada), 65 Control schools (50 in Surat and 15 in Narmada); 394 Students in Intervention schools (196 in Surat and 198 in Narmada) and 259 students in Control Schools (200 in Surat and 59 in Narmada)
Impact
The insights from the evaluation helped assess how accelerated quality interventions could be piloted within the state systems and helped understand potential challenges in scale-up. It also enabled insights to refine the curriculum and assessment tools. The results and insights from the evaluation led to the establishment of a larger pilot project to generate more rigorous evidence for the efficacy of such a program in government school contexts.
Contact
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