2014 Global Monitoring Report

Global Monitoring Report

2014

Putting the Pieces Together in Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation

Dear Friends,

It is a great pleasure to introduce Room to Read’s seventh annual Global Monitoring Report.

The pages that follow present evidence of the progress that we have made as an organization on several fronts. Following the lead of our 2014 Annual Report (Solving the Puzzle: Children’s Literacy and Girls’ Education1), I particularly want to highlight the progress Room to Read has made

in our continued efforts to bring together the various elements of our work into an effective, comprehensive whole.

Over the past few years we have brought together a range of once-separate program components, such as libraries and literacy instruction, to establish our integrated Literacy Program. This shift in program implementation requires a corresponding shift in our approach to measurement and reporting. Reflecting this shift, the structure of this year’s report has been updated to present a consolidated view of the results of our Literacy Program.

The report’s structure also reflects our efforts to better integrate the components of research, monitoring, and evaluation. When deployed strategically, these complement one another:

• Research enables us to tackle forward-looking, exploratory questions of critical interest to programs teams;

• Monitoring tracks our activities and results on an ongoing basis, shows trends over time, and raises questions for further study;

• Evaluation tells us whether outcomes are improving for children and whether Room to Read is responsible for this improvement. This includes our Reading Skills Evaluations—a highlight in this year’s report, as 2014 marks the first year we are able to report findings for every country where we have implemented literacy instruction.

Each of these components represents an essential part of our strategy as a learning organization. As such, for each section that follows, we have reported our most important 2014 findings from all three areas of work.

The Global Monitoring Report is one element of our commitment to being transparent about our results and to holding ourselves accountable to our global stakeholders. We hope that the strength of our results will encourage others to adopt similar approaches, so that we can all work together toward the systemic changes needed to promote lifelong learning for children around the globe.

Sincerely,

Dr. Matthew Jukes Senior Director, Global Research, Monitoring and Evaluation

1 www.roomtoread.org/AnnualReport/2014

GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2014

http://www.roomtoread.org/AnnualReport/2014

Introduction

Literacy Program Program Outcomes

Program Reach

Monitoring Program Activities

Girls' Education Program Program Outcomes

Program Reach

Monitoring Program Activities

Conclusion

Appendix: Global Indicators

About This Report

A S I A

Sri Lanka

India

Nepal

Laos

Vietnam

Cambodia

Bangladesh

A F R I C A

South Africa

Zambia

Tanzania

Table of Contents

1

46

11

13

1921

25

26

29

30

33

Where We Work


Figures

Figure 1. Total Children Benefited to Date 2

Figure 2. Average Words Read per Minute in Program and Comparison Schools 6

Figure 3. Average Words Read per Minute—Vietnam 7

Figure 4. Percentage of Children Reading for Enjoyment at Home 8

Figure 5. Average Number of Books Checked Out per Student 9

Figure 6. Percentage of Children Checking Out Books 9

Figure 7. Total Literacy Program Schools to Date 11

Figure 8. Total Literacy Program Schools to Date by Country 12

Figure 9. Teachers Receiving Professional Development in Literacy Instruction 13

Figure 10. Percentage of Teachers Conducting Key Steps in Reading Activities 14

Figure 11. Change in Library Ratings, 2014 16

Figure 12. Top Ten Most Popular Book Titles, by Publisher 17

Figure 13. Total Secondary School Graduates to Date 21

Figure 14. Retention and Dropout 22

Figure 15. Total Girls' Education Program Participants to Date 25

Figure 16. Girls' Education Program Participants to Date by Country 25

Textboxes

Textbox 1. Testing New Ways to Track Children's Habit of Reading 10

Textbox 2. Evaluating Librarian and Teacher Training with the Reading Promotion Study 14

Textbox 3. Piloting a Protocol to Reduce Dropout Risk 22

Textbox 4. Rapid Assessment in Four Countries Highlights Program Benefits for Girls 24

List of Figures and Textboxes


IntroductionRoom to Read seeks to transform the lives of children in low-income countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education.

GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2014 | 1

Six years ago, we set an ambitious goal to improve educational access and opportunity for 10 million children by the end of 2015.2 As shown in Figure 1, we are rapidly nearing this goal: as of the end of 2014, more than 9.7 million children have benefited from our programs. As a point of comparison, that is more than the total population of Sweden.3

2 Room to Read. “Envisioning Our Future: A Roadmap for Learning.” http://www.roomtoread.org/document.doc?id=220.3 The World Bank Open Data, http://data.worldbank.org, retrieved 11 August, 2015


http://www.roomtoread.org/document.doc?id=220

http://data.worldbank.org

Our annual Global Monitoring Report helps us chart our progress toward this and other goals, presenting key results across the 10 countries where we work. Highlights of this year’s report include:

• Our Reading Skills Evaluations continue to show that students in schools with Room to Read

literacy instruction have better reading skills than students at other schools.

• Our School Libraries Cross-National Evaluation showed that students in schools with Room to

Read libraries are more likely to read for enjoyment than students in other schools.

• The average number of books checked out by each child increased for the fifth consecutive

year. This growth demonstrates that Room to Read libraries are getting better and better at

strengthening children’s habit of reading.

• As of 2014, our Girls’ Education Program has supported more than 30,000 girls to help them

stay in school and build the skills to navigate key life decisions.

In the following sections, each program—Literacy and Girls’ Education—is assessed in terms of its outcomes, its reach, and the activities that make up the program.

The data and stories presented in this report are drawn from ongoing monitoring efforts in 2014 and from evaluations and research into our programs’ impacts on children’s educational outcomes.4 We share our findings with our program participants, investors, partners and the broader international education community.

4 For more information about our research and evaluation activities, please visit our website at http://www.roomtoread.org/measuringresults.


http://www.roomtoread.org/measuringresults

Literacy ProgramOur Literacy Program enables primary school children to become independent readers.


Literacy is not only the foundation of all future learning; it is fundamental for participation in modern global society. Yet nearly 800 million people across the globe—more than one out of every seven adults—lack the ability to read and write. That means being unable to understand every medicine bottle, employment ad or ballot form they encounter. Of all the illiterate people in the world today, two-thirds are female. More than 90 percent live in low-income countries.

Room to Read’s Literacy Program is designed to address this challenge by transforming primary schools into child-friendly learning environments that enable every child to become an independent reader. We define an “independent reader” as a child who is able to read and does so regularly.

Our approach includes working with schools to help them establish libraries with books in the children’s local languages, as well as ensuring that teachers and librarians are trained in the best practices of literacy instruction. By bringing these components together, our Literacy Program helps put children on a path toward lifelong learning.


Program OutcomesThis section describes our 2014 progress toward our program goal to enable children to become independent readers, with both reading skills and a habit of reading.

Reading SkillsChildren have more advanced reading skills in Room to Read program schools than in nearby comparison schools.


Reading Skills Evaluations In our 2012 and 2013 Global Monitoring Reports, we presented the results of evaluations underway to measure the impact of our Literacy Program on reading skills. We report children’s reading fluency, measured in words per minute, because this measure is a good indication of whether a child is reading fast enough to understand what he or she has read. Key to these evaluations is a comparison of our projects with similar schools that do not benefit from our programs, which tells us whether or not improvements in children’s reading outcomes are attributable to our work.

This year, for the first time we are able to report first and second grade results for every country where we have implemented literacy instruction. The graphs on the previous page reflect the scores of more than 20,000 children we have tested as part of our Reading Skills Evaluations. Across diverse contexts, these evaluations demonstrate that children in Room to Read program schools read more fluently than children in nearby comparison schools.

While the degree of improvement varied, Figure 2 on the previous page shows that this overall trend was consistent across eight countries—Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Zambia. In each of these countries, students in Room to Read program schools showed statistically significant gains in reading fluency when compared to their peers in other schools.

These successes are remarkable when compared with similarly focused education interventions around the world. In a recent review of 75 evaluations of teacher training programs in low-income countries,5 only two studies found a moderate or large effect of the kind seen in nearly all Room to Read evaluations. The results above therefore demonstrate that overall, our Literacy Program is making an impact in challenging environments where success has often been elusive.

In just one country—Vietnam—our assessments were unable to show a statistically significant difference between students in program and comparison schools. This does not mean that students in program schools were struggling to read—on the contrary, their scores were the highest of any country we evaluated. Rather, the lack of observed impact resulted from the fact that students in Vietnamese comparison schools also had high reading scores, as shown in Figure 3.

This result from Vietnam was critical—it meant that government schools were already successfully building children’s literacy skills in these communities. As such, there was no need to continue our instruction work in Vietnam. We were thus able to re-allocate these resources toward other components of our Literacy Program that better align with the country’s needs, such as establishing libraries and publishing children’s books.

5 Ewan, Patrick J. (2015). “Improving Learning in Primary Schools of Developing Countries: a Meta-Analysis of Randomized Experiments.” Publication forthcoming.


In the eight countries where we are continuing our instruction activities, we have efforts underway to set specific second-grade fluency targets based on the number of words per minute that are required for comprehension. Since word length and grammar vary among languages, this target fluency will also differ from one language to the next.6

We will continue to collect and report data on children’s reading fluency each year to ensure our program delivers its desired benefits. We are also preparing to launch instruction activities in Tanzania, our newest program country, in early 2016.

Habit of ReadingRoom to Read libraries demonstrably improve children’s reading behaviors.

School Libraries Cross-National Evaluation We recently released a report7 that compared schools with and without Room to Read libraries. This external evaluation, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, collected data from Room to Read libraries in India, Laos, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Zambia—more than 2,400 schools in all, with more than 20,000 children interviewed.

This study demonstrated that Room to Read libraries help to improve children’s habit of reading. As shown in Figure 4, 56 percent of the children in schools with a Room to Read library report reading for enjoyment at home, as compared to 40 percent in comparison schools.

6 In the past, we have used a target fluency rate of 45 – 60 words per minute, which was based on studies in a variety of languages.7 Available at http://www.roomtoread.org/document.doc?id=1362.



Global Indicators As further evidence of the impact of our libraries, our ongoing monitoring showed that the average number of books checked out by each child increased for the fifth consecutive year. Children checked out more than 9.5 million books in 2014—an average of 2,192 books in each library we supported. As shown in Figure 5, the average number of books checked out by each student has steadily increased since we began tracking this indicator, to a new high of 9.7 books per student. This growth suggests that Room to Read libraries are succeeding in their objec-tive of building children’s habit of reading.8

Book Checkout Preferences Study To better understand the details behind our checkout figures, we completed a research study that examined book checkout trends among primary school children in Room to Read libraries in Nepal, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. In each country, Room to Read staff visited a small sample of libraries to analyze book checkout records and conducted focus group discussions with primary grade students and teachers.

One finding that held across all three countries was that most children in these schools are checking out books—with percentages ranging from 65 percent of children in South Africa to 82 percent of children in Tamil-language schools in Sri Lanka (see Figure 6). However, it was also found that checkout was low in early grades. In most cases, first grade students were less than half as likely to check out books compared with children from other grades. This finding suggests a way to increase checkout—by publishing more book titles for early readers and by training teachers to encourage checkout among younger students.9

How can we improve habits even further? Our recently completed Reading Promotion Study10 suggests that librarian training may be one of the most important drivers of students’ reading. For more on the study and its implications for improving checkout in the future, see the textbox on page 14.

8 Of course, we know that children also read books in the library without checking them out, and likely read materials other than library books as well. For more on our ongoing work to develop a more comprehensive set of measures of children’s habit of reading, please see the textbox on page 10.

9 For more on the Book Checkout Preferences Study, see the summary report at http://www.roomtoread.org/document.doc?id=1445.10 Summary report forthcoming.



TESTING NEW WAYS TO TRACK CHILDREN’S HABIT OF READING

While the increasing book checkout rates reported above represent one clear signal that our libraries are effectively building children’s habit of reading, these figures alone do not tell the whole story, as children may read many more books than they check out. To complete the picture, we are now in the process of integrating a broader assessment of students’ habit of reading into our global monitoring of school libraries.

As a first step, we are piloting a reading habit assessment methodology in South Africa in 2015. The pilot builds on the methods used for the Reading Promotion Study to develop measures that track reading behaviors beyond checkout. Measures being piloted include students' ability to

demonstrate knowledge of popular titles, their self-reported reading frequency, and the number of titles they can list from memory. During the pilot, Room to Read literacy coaches are assessing various measures through interviewing students and reviewing book checkout records. The results of this pilot will inform the development of one or more global metrics to be rolled out worldwide in 2016.

Through our research, we have been able to test reading habit measures, survey methods, and tracking tools with the goal of establishing systems that are relevant, effective, and can be used long term.

Textbox 1


Program ReachWe have partnered with more than 17,000 schools across 10 countries through our Literacy Program.

By the end of 2014, more than 9 million children had benefited from our Literacy Program—and the number will be nearly 10 million by the time this report is released. In 2014 this number included more than 1 million children in schools with actively supported Room to Read libraries, while nearly 85,000 children benefited from our literacy instruction component (most of whom also had access to a Room to Read library).

In 2014, we implemented our literacy instruction activities in more than 2,900 classes in 1,206 schools. We partner with education ministries in each country to supplement gaps that exist in the standard reading and writing curriculum—providing resources, in-service teacher training and classroom enhancements.

We established new school libraries in 984 schools. These libraries provide children with access to engaging books, trained librarians and a safe space to read. To ensure that Room to Read libraries continue to serve children long into the future, we actively support each new library for three years until it can operate sustainably on its own. A total of 4,370 libraries were under active support in 2014.

We constructed 405 libraries and classrooms across 162 schools, and upgraded 197 existing rooms in another 47. This helps us address the unmet need for adequate learning environments for children.

In 2014, 92 percent of instruction projects were implemented at schools that also had libraries. Implementing these components as a combined package at the same schools means that each child benefits from a more intensive and comprehensive investment in his or her reading. In each of these schools, our work has helped to bring new focus and rigor to the challenge of strengthening children’s literacy.



Monitoring Program ActivitiesPart of the work of our Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation team is to track the implementation of our program activities to ensure our standards are met. The following sections describe key findings for this activity monitoring for the Literacy Program in 2014.

Professional DevelopmentEach year we train thousands of teachers, librarians, and others in the skills they need to provide effective learning environments for children.

As demonstrated by our Reading Promotion Study (see textbox on page 14), teachers and librarians play a critical role in the development of children’s reading. For this reason, our Literacy Program provides professional development and support so teachers and librarians can contribute to children’s literacy development in ways that incorporate the latest evidence and global best practices.

In 2014 we provided professional development to roughly 10,000 teachers, librarians, and other school staff.

This includes 2,316 teachers who received training in literacy instruction. We provide workshops and on-site coaching twice per month, training teachers in the use of evidence-based instructional routines and regular student assessments to improve classroom instruction. We provided a total of 206 professional development workshops in 2014.

Of the classes we supported in 2014, 84 percent were visited by Room to Read literacy coaches twice per month, as specified in our program design. While an improvement over 2013, we continue to strive for a 100 percent result for this figure, and have hired additional in-country field staff to meet this goal.

We also provided professional training in library management, reading activities, and sustainability to librarians and other school staff in 97 percent of the more than 4,000 schools with libraries under active support, for an average of four days per training. More than 35,000 teachers had access to an actively supported Room to Read library in 2014.

To develop our children’s book titles, we recruit and develop local talent to ensure culturally and linguistically relevant material, which often cannot be found locally in the countries where we work. We host in-country workshops to introduce authors and illustrators to the basic concepts of creating age-appropriate, engaging storybooks for children. In 2014 we trained 269 local authors and illustrators in story and book production, and ultimately commissioned 194 to develop content for books.


Textbox 2

EVALUATING LIBRARIAN & TEACHER TRAINING WITH THE READING PROMOTION STUDY

As part of our priority to continue improving our professional development, our recently completed Reading Promotion Study sought to understand how librarians and teachers encourage or discourage children’s reading.

In 2013 Room to Read established global guidelines for training teachers to conduct reading activities with children. Observations conducted during library periods as part of this study showed that this training is effective in helping teachers to adopt proven best practices. The majority of teachers are carrying out most of the key steps in reading activities according to their training.


By analyzing students’ reading behavior, we further found that well-trained teachers and librarians play a critical role in encouraging students to read, supporting our growing emphasis on professional development and providing validation for the design of our reading activities, which are based on best practices from high-income countries. Students read more frequently and with greater motivation when:

• Teachers at the school are trained by Room to Read and are supported by the principal;

• Teachers at the school conduct a combination of reading activities such as reading aloud, shared reading, paired reading, and independent reading;

• The school has frequent library periods with a library that houses books that are favorable to children; and

• The language teacher uses library books to reinforce learning.

An additional major determinant of children’s motivation and behavior around reading is their level of reading fluency. Children with better reading skills show a greater interest in reading and ultimately read more books. However, when library periods—rather than classroom lessons—were used to teach reading skills, students found this demotivating and read less. This finding supports Room to Read’s approach of devoting separate time to the development of a habit of reading on the one hand and the ability to read on the other, which then reinforce one another.

The study also pointed to ways we can improve our program. Teachers requested more hands-on and participatory training methods to increase their confidence in carrying out reading activities, something we have already started to incorporate into our training programs. We also need to help teachers carve out time to carry out these activities, which one in three teachers cited as a major challenge.

Overall, the study provided valuable insights that will allow us to help teachers effectively use school libraries to encourage children to develop a lifelong love of reading.

TEACHERS AT THE SCHOOL

HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY ROOM

TO READ AND ARE SUPPORTED

BY THE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

TEACHERS CONDUCT A

COMBINATION OF READING

ACTIVITIES SUCH AS READ-

ING ALOUD, SHARED READ-

ING, PAIRED READING, AND

INDEPENDENT READING

THE SCHOOL HAS

FREQUENT LIBRARY

PERIODS WITH A LIBRARY

THAT HOUSES BOOKS THE

CHILDREN LIKE

THE LANGUAGE TEACHER

USES LIBRARY BOOKS

IN CLASS TO REINFORCE

LEARNING

LESSON


Library ManagementOngoing monitoring helps ensure well-run, effective libraries.

The professional development we provide helps to build the knowledge and skills needed to implement key library management systems. In 2014 nearly all of our libraries had implemented our standardized and recommended systems:

• 98 percent of libraries had functional checkout systems, which allow children to borrow and take home books from the library, and

• 100 percent of libraries had book leveling systems, which enable children, teachers and parents to identify books appropriate for students’ reading levels.

Room to Read staff utilize a Library Rating System to evaluate each library twice per year against a prioritized checklist of indicators related to its physical setup, scheduling, professional development, and engagement with families and communities. This helps our staff to quickly determine the highest priority areas for improvement, and to allocate their school visits effectively, making sure those with the greatest challenges receive the most support.

Our 2014 results show that this system is continuing to make a difference in schools, with the percentage of libraries receiving the lowest rating of

“Developing” decreasing from 15 percent in the first assessment of the year to just 5 percent in the second.

Children’s Books and Instructional Materials

We published 129 titles in 15 languages in 2014.

We publish original, high-quality, developmentally appropriate children’s books in the local languages of the countries where we work, and we also procure titles from other publishers where available. Since we began producing children’s books, we have published 1,158 titles in 29 languages.

Our Book Checkout Preferences Study (see above under “Habit of Reading”) investigated children’s reading preferences by assessing the characteristics of the books that were checked out most often. One key result: children prefer Room to Read-published titles to those not published by Room to Read by wide margins, as shown in Figure 12 on the following page. Focus group discussions with children revealed that children prefer these titles for their colorful illustrations and the fact that their fonts, letter sizes, and number of words per page make them easier to read.


In 2014, we distributed more than 600,000 copies of Room to Read published books to the schools and libraries we support. Including purchased and donated books, the 2014 total rises to more than 2 million. At this rate of distribution, libraries will receive an average of 7.2 books for each student in primary grades over the three years of Room to Read support. We distributed nearly 120,000 copies of books published by Room to Read to other entities, such as public libraries, other nongovernmental organizations or schools where we are not working.

We also develop materials that help children learn to read, such as workbooks, letter cards, and classroom posters. In 2014, 98 percent of schools where we support literacy instruction received these materials.

Sustainable School Infrastructure

Nearly all school infrastructure projects remain in use and in good condition long after Room to Read’s involvement ends.

In some communities, building or upgrading school infrastructure is one of the most important ways Room to Read can contribute to children’s learning. We recognize that such facilities are unlikely to thrive in the long run unless they are supported by a local commitment to their success. To promote sustainability, we ask any communities where we work to invest

some of their own cash, materials, and/or labor to cover a portion of the total construction cost. Communities also invest time and energy by monitoring the progress of construction and keeping basic project records. In 2014 100 percent of school construction projects were completed with community co-investment. This marks the fifth consecutive year in which co-investment was achieved universally.

100% OF INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

FROM ROOM TO READ WERE COMPLETED WITH

SIGNIFICANT SUPPORT FROM THE COMMUNITY

FINANCIAL

INVESTMENT

DONATED

MATERIALS

VOLUNTEER

LABOR


After our formal support to these infrastructure projects ends, we conduct monitoring visits for three consecutive years following project completion. We monitor our previously completed projects to (1) identify and repair any projects with major structural damage and (2) learn more about the sustainability of our projects. For 2014 reporting, we visited 744 projects constructed in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Our findings included:

• 98 percent of infrastructure projects were still in use as classrooms or libraries. Most of the remaining two percent are instead being used as teachers’ rooms, head teachers’ offices or another administrative office. When this occurs, country teams meet with school officials to advocate that such rooms be returned to their intended purpose per our agreements with schools.

• Less than one percent of infrastructure projects showed signs of major structural damage, which we have already worked with the communities to repair. We are providing both financial and logistical support to these communities to ensure these buildings are returned to a condition of safety. Findings are also helping to improve our designs going forward. For example, two Cambodian projects that were damaged by heavy flooding in 2013 led to insights that will enable us to improve the flood-readiness of future projects.


Girls, EducationOur Girls’ Education Program supports girls to complete secondary school with the skills necessary to negotiate key life decisions.


Educating girls and women is one of the most powerful ways to address global poverty. Our Girls’ Education Program works to turn the tide against gender inequality in education across Asia and Africa.

We focus on girls in secondary school because that is where the biggest, most persistent gaps in gender equality in education arise. Girls who finish secondary school go on to earn more, have smaller and healthier families, and are more likely to educate their own children—helping to end the cycle of poverty.

Key to our program are our social mobilizers, local women who act as life skills facilitators, mentors, and role models, working closely with girls to help them stay in school. We assess each girl’s individual needs to ensure she gets the support she needs to navigate the challenges of adolescence with the ability to make her own life choices, both personally and professionally.


Program OutcomesThis section describes our 2014 progress toward our program goal—to ensure that girls complete secondary school with the skills to negotiate key life decisions.

Secondary School CompletionIn 2014, young women supported by the program successfully graduated from secondary school.

A total of 1,636 program participants to date have graduated from secondary school since our first class of graduates in 2007.


Program RetentionIn 2014, 91 percent of participants either remained in the program or graduated.

Two percent of participants left a program school but enrolled at another school, and seven percent dropped out of school.

When a girl drops out of school, her social mobilizer talks with her and her family to understand the factors that led to this decision. In 2014, economic challenges remained the most frequently cited primary reason, responsible for the dropout of 1.8 percent of program participants. Economics were the most common factor cited in 2013 as well. Other reasons for dropout included academic challenges (1.6 percent of participants), relocation (1.4 percent), and marriage (1 percent).

Over the past several years, we have seen a trend of increasing dropout among our Girls’ Education scholars, which in part reflects the increased challenges that girls face as they grow older and advance through school—such as early marriage, pregnancy, high-stakes exams, and pressure to earn income. The textbox below describes one part of our strategy to address these growing challenges with targeted support for those most in need.

PILOTING AN EARLY WARNING SYSTEM TO REDUCE DROPOUT RISK

One of the key goals of our monitoring system is to put in place processes that help us move quickly from data to action. Last year’s report discussed the work being done in Nepal to develop an early-warning system that would enable us to identify those girls most at risk of dropout and quickly intervene with additional targeted support.

In 2014, our team in Nepal tracked a set of risk factors among all 3,015 girls who participated in the program. Risk factors included: 1) missing school; 2) failing an exam; 3) missing life skills sessions; and 4) parents/guardians missing meetings.

Textbox 3

3 CONSECUTIVE DAYS

OF ABSENCE FROM SCHOOL

1+ MISSED LIFE

SKILLS SESSIONS

EXAM FAILURE PARENTS’ FAILURE TO ATTEND

A ROOM TO READ PARENT MEETING

LIFE SKILLSLESSON

ABSENCES

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

PARENTS MEETINGEXAM


Academic Advancement and Transition11

Advancement and transition rates increased year-over-year.

In 2014, 95 percent of Girls’ Education Program participants who remained in school advanced to the next grade level, an increase from 94 percent in 2013. Additionally, 88 percent of girls who finished a school level and were required to pass a gatekeeping exam12 successfully transitioned to the next school level, an increase from 84 percent in 2013.

We track these academic advancement and transition rates to monitor progress toward our goal of supporting girls to complete secondary school. This advancement is critical to a girl’s long-term wellbeing: for each additional year of schooling she completes, her future income increases by an estimated 15 – 25 percent.13

The growth in these rates year over year helps to demonstrate that girls in the program are receiving the support they need to progress toward graduation and to secure a better future for themselves and their families.

Transitions to Tertiary Education

Though Room to Read ends our formal support to each girl after she completes her secondary school education, we stay in touch with our program alumnae to learn how schooling has contributed to their lives in the long term. The data we have collected to date show that 72 percent of program graduates have pursued tertiary education through enrollment in colleges, universities, or vocational schools.

Results like these are critical to helping us understand the long-term impacts of our programs. In 2015, we are putting in place an alumnae survey process that will enable us to report on such results in a more systematic, ongoing way. We will report on the first set of survey results in next year’s Global Monitoring Report.

Over the course of the year, girls who exhibited one or more risk factors were more than five times as likely to drop out of school as girls who did not. Identifying girls most at risk to drop out has enabled our social mobilizers in Nepal to provide additional support such as home visits, mentoring, and summarizing the content of missed sessions.

Based on the findings in Nepal, we are now piloting this system in Tanzania and Zambia. Social mobilizers will track the four identified risk factors among the girls on their program and assign a risk level that is associated with a particular set of interventions. The results of the pilot in Africa will inform the Risk and Response Protocol that will soon be rolled out to all nine Girls' Education Program countries.

11 Please note that these results do not include full 2014 results from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which were not yet available due to the timing of their academic years.

12 A gatekeeping exam is a national test that students must pass to advance to the next school grade or level. We support girls who have gaps in basic skills to tackle the challenges they face with these exams.

13 Schultz, Paul T. “Why Governments Should Invest More to Educate Girls.” World Development 30 (2): 207-25.


RAPID ASSESSMENT IN FOUR COUNTRIES HIGHLIGHTS PROGRAM BENEFITS FOR GIRLS

One of our ongoing Girls’ Education Program priorities is to understand how the program is perceived by its stakeholders—including parents, teachers, community members, and program staff as well as the girls themselves. In 2014, we commissioned an independent consultant to conduct focus group discussions and in-depth interviews in Cambodia, India, Nepal, and Zambia. Key among the consultant’s findings were that the program increases girls’ motivation to study, their desire to stay in school, and their life skills competency. This represents a strong validation of our efforts through the program to date.

Confidence, in and out of school, was the most common theme in discussing the benefits of life skills education.

“Earlier I was afraid of broad roads … talking to strangers. I have never been out of my village. After learning visits to different areas, I am more confident taking public transport and talking to different people.” (Girl interviewee)

“I have noticed every time we have assembly programs, the girls take a leading role … even in the lower grades, you find that girls are taking a leading role.” (Head Teacher interviewee)

The program had expanded the educational goals of girls and their parents.

“My parents gave me a narrow vision of education. I only wanted to study until eighth grade. I dreamed of cooking, marriage, and roaming with my husband in the future. But now I want to study more and more and I have a career goal in my life.” (Girl interviewee)

“I have two elder sisters and both are primary school drop outs. When I reached eighth grade, my father wanted me to stop coming to school and leave study. I directly talked to my father and shared my aspiration of completing secondary education. He said, ‘You are a very confident girl.’ He promised me that he will not stop my education in future.” (Girl focus group participant)

Girls also share their goals with other girls and influence them to set long and short term goals.

“I love attending the life skill sessions. Because of it my elder sister decided to study beyond 12th grade and wants to become a doctor. I have been sharing all my learning from the life skill sessions with two of my sisters who are not part of the GEP. We are now all looking to fulfill our goals.” (Girl interviewee)

The evaluation also produced a number of recommendations to improve the program. It helped to inform the development of our Risk & Response pilot (see page 22), and inspired improvements in our approach to life skills education. We are also acting on recommendations to expand the use of study groups for peer tutoring, encourage more interaction between participants and program alumnae, and expand the involvement of school teachers in the program.

Overall, the evaluation found strong evidence that participants perceive benefits of the Girls’ Education Program in line with the two main goals of the program—improving life skills and completing secondary school. The evaluation also helped to inform the design of our upcoming large-scale randomized controlled trial of the program, to take place from 2016 – 18 in Rajasthan, India. This will be the first rigorous quantitative evaluation of the program and will provide valuable information on the effectiveness of life-skills education in low-income country contexts. Future reports will provide updates on the progress of this evaluation.

Textbox 4


Program ReachOur Girls’ Education Program has supported more than 30,000 girls across nine countries.

The cumulative total of 31,733 includes 26,016 girls supported by the program in 2014. As Figure 15 shows, we have steadily increased the number of girls receiving our support since the program began.

31,733

Figure 15

Total Girls’ Education Program Participants to Date

10,000

0

20,000

30,000

2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 20132002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

4,129


Monitoring Program ActivitiesOur program uses a multifaceted approach, combining life skills education, mentoring, material and academic support, and parental engagement activities. We recognize that each girl has her own challenges to education, and we tailor the support we provide to her needs.

The following sections describe the activities that constituted our implementation of the Girls’ Education Program in 2014.

Life Skills Education

In 2014, 87 percent of participants received life skills education.

Our program is increasing its emphasis on building the life skills our participants will need to succeed in school and after graduation. Life skills education includes camps, workshops and experiential training. Topics covered include self-awareness, empathy, communication, interpersonal skills, decision-making and problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, and coping with stress.

This year, we are able to report new evidence that our life skills education component is associated with lower dropout. A recent analysis of project data going back to the early years of the Girls’ Education Program showed that girls in the program who participated in life skills education had a 14 percent lower dropout rate than girls in the program who did not participate. It further showed that girls who participated in life skills education had a 16 percent higher advancement rate than girls who did not.

These findings suggest that we are on the right track. In 2016, we will launch an evaluation in 100 schools in India that will provide a far more in-depth, rigorous assessment of the Girls’ Education Program, with a particular emphasis on life skills.

An additional area of focus around life skills education is ensuring that more girls receive it. While the vast majority of program participants participate, achieving our goal of 100 percent attendance has been a challenge, particularly in poorer areas. Country teams are deploying a range of strategies to address the shortfall, including working with school districts to schedule sessions at times that make it easier for girls to attend.

AN ADVANCEMENT

RATE THAT WAS

A DROPOUT RATE

THAT WAS

16% HIGHER

14% LOWER

THAN GIRLS WHO DID NOT PARTICIPATE

LIFESKILLS

LESSO

N

LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION WAS ASSOCIATED WITH....


Mentoring

Social mobilizers provided mentoring to each of the more than 26,000 girls currently on the program.

Each girl participating in the program benefits from the mentoring support of her social mobilizer. Part of a social mobilizer’s role is to be a trustworthy adult who can serve as an advisor, role model and advocate—something that, for some girls, would be unavailable otherwise. As such, a social mobilizer can make an enormous difference during a critical period in a girl’s emotional development.

In addition, social mobilizers identify girls who need additional mentoring by keeping a close watch on each girl’s attendance, actions, and academic performance. In 2014, 23 percent of the girls in the program received additional mentoring in response to demonstrated need.

Material Support

We provided material support to 38 percent of participants in 2014.

Material support addresses some of the common economic barriers that can keep a girl from finishing secondary school.

This type of support can include coverage of school-related and non-school-related costs. School-related costs include school and exam fees or the costs of textbooks, school supplies and clean uniforms. Non-school-related costs can take the form of a new bike, bus fares, feminine hygiene products, or a room in a boarding house closer to school.

Each girl’s need for material support is assessed annually to ensure that available support is provided to those girls who need it most. As we reported in 2013’s Global Monitoring Report, we have shifted our program toward providing more in-depth life skills education, while de-emphasizing material support. Our increasing focus on life skills acknowledges that girls face a wide range of challenges that go beyond the economic. Life skills education seeks to provide girls with the tools they will need to stand on their own and become proactive, independent adults throughout their lives. In keeping with this re-alignment of priorities, we continued to reduce the number of girls receiving material support in 2014.

Academic Support

In 2014, 80 percent of Girls’ Education Program participants received support from local tutors engaged by Room to Read.

We seek to ensure that girls have the knowledge they need to succeed in class.

We provide academic support in the form of remedial instruction, tutoring and exam preparation. A 2014 review of project data from all nine countries where we have implemented the program found that girls who received academic support were less likely to drop out and more likely to advance to the next grade than girls who did not.

Beginning in 2015, we are making several changes to the way academic support is provided that are intended to improve cost-effectiveness and sustainability. Large-scale hiring of external tutors is costly, and as the availability of skilled tutors varied significantly across contexts, quality was difficult to guarantee in some areas.


Our new approach integrates academic support elements across the program, rather than treating it as a distinct component. For example, life skills education will include special focus on academic behaviors, persistence, and other skills required to succeed in school. Additional mentoring sessions will be provided to girls who struggle academically. In some cases, exam preparation will still be provided as an element of material support; however, this will be more strictly targeted based on a girl's individual needs.

We will report on progress toward this new approach in next year’s Global Monitoring Report.

Parent and Guardian Engagement

In 2014, 82 percent of Girls’ Education Program participants’ parents and guardians attended parents’ meetings.

Parent and guardian engagement in their daughters’ education is essential for program sustainability and larger program transformation.

One way our Girls’ Education Program seeks to engage parents is through bimonthly meetings, which allow parents and guardians the opportunity to learn from each other in supporting their daughters.

These meetings help us to shift parents’ attitudes toward greater support and engagement. In Tanzania, one participant described the impact of the meetings as follows:

“We don’t talk to our girls at home. We don’t know what they are doing at school. But now we come here to talk and now we know that, yes, this is what we are supposed to do. We must help our girls go to school.”

This kind of parental engagement is critical in helping girls to stay in school. In an analysis of multiple years of project data worldwide, we found that girls whose parents attended meetings were more than 20 percent less likely to drop out than girls whose parents did not attend. In a separate analysis in Nepal, girls whose parents attended every meeting were more than 90 percent less likely to drop out.

In light of this finding, teams are making significant efforts to increase parents’ attendance, such as more engaging content and procedures for follow-up with parents who don’t attend.


ConclusionThis report is a synthesis of evidence collected through a range of processes across 10 different countries. By putting the pieces of the puzzle together and combining insights from our research, monitoring, and evaluation, we can see the complete picture: what we are doing well, what can be improved, and how.

This year’s report provides further evidence that our programs are working. Children’s reading skills are markedly improved, and they continue to check out more books each year. More than a thousand girls have finished secondary school with help from Room to Read—and those who participate in our life skills education are more likely to stay in school and continue to advance.

We are pleased to share this information with external audiences as part of our commitment to remaining transparent about our work and accountable to our beneficiaries, donors and other key stakeholders. We look forward to continuing to share these results in next year’s report and beyond.


Appendix: Global IndicatorsMost of the figures presented in this report come from our Global Indicators process. The Global Indicators are a set of key metrics we collect on an ongoing basis across all 10 countries where we work and report publicly each year. Although we revisit and update these indicators periodically, most remain the same from year to year, enabling us to report on trends over time. Results from the past three years for each indicator are presented in the tables below.

Literacy

Indicator 2012 2013 2014

New school libraries established 1,925 1,457 984*

Cumulative school libraries established 15,094 16,550 17,534

Schools with instruction component 599 1,046 1,206

Classes with instruction component 1,173 2,043 2,914

Average number of books checked out per student across school libraries under active support

8.2 8.9 9.7

Average number of books checked out per library 1,670 1,904 2,192

Total books checked out in supported libraries 9,732,468 10,104,899 9,514,469*

Children with access to school libraries under active support 1,296,989 1,173,036 1,001,393*

Children benefiting from instruction component 37,964 62,597 84,958

Average number of children per school library under active support

222 222 230

Teachers with access to school libraries under active support 41,942 39,861 35,925*

Teachers benefiting from instruction component 1,071 1,749 2,316

Literacy instruction workshops delivered 112 174 206

New infrastructure projects completed 246 225 209

New rooms constructed 550 464 405

Rooms repaired & renovated (new indicator) — — 197

New Room to Read titles published 167 155 129

Cumulative Room to Read titles 874 1,029 1,158

Local authors and illustrators trained 305 229 269

Local authors and illustrators commissioned to develop content 245 223 194

Room to Read books distributed to Room to Read projects 1,357,610 1,194,362 647,733*

*Note: In recent years, we have intentionally shifted from establishing libraries alone to implementing our more intensive, full Literacy Program at each school. As such, the number of libraries established each year has reduced, as are other related indicators.


Literacy (Continued)

Indicator 2012 2013 2014

Room to Read books distributed to other organizations 212,299 155,449 119,892

Average number of books provided per student per year

to supported libraries2.66 2.09 2.11

Percentage supported libraries where school personnel

received training99% 93% 97%

Percentage of supported libraries with book leveling systems 96% 100% 100%

Percentage of supported libraries with functional

checkout systems99% 99% 98%

Percentage of new infrastructure projects constructed with

community co-investment100% 100% 100%

Percentage of rooms built in previous three most recent years

that are still in use95% 96% 98%

Percentage of projects built in previous three project years

with major structural damage0.3% 0.6% 0.9%

Percentage of instruction classes receiving two coaching

visits per month88% 80% 84%

Percentage of instruction classes receiving required materials 86% 100% 100%


Girls' Education

Indicator 2012 2013 2014

New graduates 289 399 441

Cumulative graduates 798 1,195 1,636

School dropout rate 5% 4% 7%

Advancement rate 94% 94% 95%

Transition rate 85% 84% 88%

Number of Girls’ Education Program participants

supported this year17,741 21,792 26,016

Cumulative number of Girls’ Education Program

participants supported20,375 25,830 31,733

Percentage of program participants who received

academic support84% 84% 80%

Percentage of program participants who participated in life

skills education86% 88% 87%

Percentage of program participants whose parent/guardian(s)

participated in program meetings88% 86% 82%

Percentage of program participants who received

material support65% 52% 38%

Percentage of program participants who received additional

mentoring based on need43% 38% 23%


About This ReportData CollectionThis report is based on data collected by our country-based staff. We collected data on each of the more than 4,000 projects we actively supported in 2014. Our country teams upload data collected through ongoing monitoring and support visits into a common web-based database. In the first quarter of the following year, each country’s Research, Monitoring and Evaluation team leads a reflection process, reviewing both programs to examine trends in the data and identify areas for improvement. The team documents these discussions and ensures that they feed into the next programmatic annual planning cycle.

AcknowledgmentsMany individuals contributed to this report. The report was produced by the Global Research, Monitoring and Evaluation team led by Matthew Jukes. Ryan Hebert led worldwide data collection and analysis and managed report development. Editorial feedback and programmatic review were provided by Alisha Berger, Celia Bolam, Bryson Brown, Peter Cooper, Julie Elis, Erin Ganju, Monica Griffith, Rebecca Hankin, Cory Heyman, Emily Leys, Geetha Murali, Kerri Thomsen, and Linda Tran. Emily Witt provided database support, and Steve Cox provided marketing and communications support. Graphic design was completed by Melanie Doherty Design.

Our worldwide Research, Monitoring & Evaluation team led in-country data collection, entry, analysis, and reflection. The team includes Kala Ahikari, Md. Sarwar Basher, Peter Cooper, Padmanav Dutta, Liana Epstein, Ryan Hebert, Chantou Heng, Mini Joshi, Matthew Jukes, Victor Kabwe, Badruzzaman Khan, Abdullah Mamun, Geetha Mayadunne, Prisca Mdee, Pradeep Mishra, Khanthanouphone Mixaykone, Neha Nagpal, Zukiswa Nee-Whang, Khanyisa Phaweni, Thinh Nguyen Quang, Annika Rigole, Vijay Sastry, Tonin Seoun, Mayank Sharma, Viet Ta, Prashanta Thapa, Dileesh Varghese, and Soulinthone Vilayphanh.

Finally, we would like to offer a special thank you to the staff of our Literacy and Girls’ Education Programs around the world for providing us with the opportunity to report on your excellent work. We are grateful to all of you.

Feedback?We welcome your feedback on this report. Please e-mail your questions and comments to [email protected] with “2014 Global Monitoring Report” in the subject line.


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2014 Global Monitoring Report