Evolving from the RERA and SLE assessment to a combined approach for Rolling Assessments

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Using data to understand and design for the two way relationship between conflict or crisis and education: two tools from USAID and partners

Proposal

The USAID-funded Accelerated Quality Education for Liberian Children is a four-year activity contracted to Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) for implementation. Started in March 2017, the activity is designed to achieve two major results: institutionalize a regulatory framework for an Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) and increase the eligibility of ALP learners to transition to formal education.

EDC conducted a RERA and Gender Analysis at the start of the activity in 2017, using the first iteration of the RERA tools. Findings demonstrated the effects of various risks on enrollment and completion of learning (retention), especially for girls. While this and other findings informed site selection processes, curriculum revision, community engagement plans and teacher training development and so on, it also helped shape the overall M&E approach with a focus on monitoring retention and developing feedback loops.

Between August and September 2018, EDC worked with the government of Liberia to identify priority domains from the Safer Learning Environments Assessment and planned a baseline to take place in November/December. The priority areas that emerged from the engagement with government included: corporal punishment/positive behavior management, sexual harassment and assault, bullying (including school climate and risk of abuse), environmental hazards (flooding, health hazards), and substance abuse. The activity will use the Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) method to identify high-risk school environments that do not meet the safety threshold based on learner responses.

In order to continue to monitor and track the identified risks, EDC will pilot a rolling assessment approach based on the RERA and combined with other methods. To complement the programmatic Rolling Assessment data streams, EDC will collect annual Safe Learning Environments (SLE) Assessments covering the five priority risk domains by piloting the ECCN SLE toolkit.

Rolling assessments were conceptualized to promote adaptive management, rapid responsiveness, and operational health in the context of a challenging, quickly-changing environment to support learners to attend the ALPs. Three data sources contribute to the Rolling Assessments: a quarterly site survey (for principals and classrooms); quarterly classroom observations (of teachers); and Focus Groups Discussions (FGDs) with learners, teachers and parents. In the year ahead, EDC will collect, analyze and report site survey data and classroom observation data on a quarterly basis. In addition, FGD tools will be tested, finalized and used to collate semi-annual data, using questions that build directly from the observations of the initial RERA and Gender Analysis. Originally, only the FGDs were to support the Rolling Assessments, but the team soon realized that those qualitative results could be enhanced by the information collected through site surveys and classroom observations.

In this presentation, we will discuss how the activity evolved from the initial use of the RERA and Safer Learning Environments data to the current approach of rolling assessments and annual Safer Learning Environments assessments. The presenter will share how the multi-pronged approach was developed and managed, what information was ultimately able to be collected, and how the data from these various sources combined (or not) to effectively inform program development and collaboration with stakeholders.

Authors

• Teetha Weah, EDC

• Sarah Noguiera Sanca, EDC

• Apollo Nwake, EDC