Assessing All Children's Foundational Skills Inclusively: Lessons from Nepal

• In Event: Equity in assessments: How to design appropriate learning assessments to ensure greater inclusion of children with disabilities

Proposal

Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) has been implementing Empowering a New Generation of Adolescent Girls through Education in Nepal (ENGAGE) project to support marginalized girls and children with disabilities in 34 schools of Banke, Parsa and Sarlah districts of Nepal since 2018. The project aims to improve learning opportunities for highly marginalized out of school girls and girls with disabilities. As the target population of the students in the project included both children with and without disabilities, the ENGAGE team adapted the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) tools to measure the literacy and numeracy skills of children with disabilities (particularly children with hearing and visual impairment and children with intellectual disabilities).

This presentation highlights the processes that ENGAGE followed in developing, adapting and using the assessments—how we engaged the government officials, NGOs, civil society organizations, parents, teachers and volunteers; what modifications we made to the original EGMA and EGRA tools to assess literacy and numeracy skills of learners with disabilities. For instance, to assess the learning of children with hearing or visual impairment we recruited sign language and Braille experts.

The presentation shares key takeaways, challenges faced in adapting the assessments and makes recommendations for others who are embarking on the process to assess the learning outcomes of children with disabilities. It will also share how ENGAGE has adapted its programme interventions to support learners with disabilities.

Authors

• Purna Kumar Shrestha, VSO

• Ashley Doria, Volunteer Services Overseas