Impacts of a Pedagogy-Focused Early Primary Reading and Math Intervention: Evidence from a Spatial Discontinuity in Northern Nigeria

• In Event: Pedagogies & possibilities: Evidence from literacy studies across contexts and spaces

Proposal

In this paper, we aim to estimate the causal impacts of Partnership for Learning for All in Nigerian Education (PLANE), an early literacy and numeracy intervention designed to boost student outcomes in formal primary education in Northwest Nigeria, where less than 28% of children and youth ages 5-16 can read or sum a basic addition problem (National Population Commission & RTI International, 2016). The program is a seven-year program (2022-2029) implemented by FHI 360 that supports all public primary schools in 17 Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in three states in northern Nigeria: Jigawa, Kaduna, and Kano. It is funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) implemented by FHI 360, DAI, and other organizations. The Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria (PLANE) aims to strengthen education systems in Nigeria to deliver improved foundational skills education. In Northwest Nigeria, numerous factors contribute to low learning outcomes, including inadequate teacher training; poor instructional practices; lack of teaching and learning materials; school overcrowding; poverty and malnutrition; limited parental education; and other factors (National Population Commission & RTI International, 2016; Humphreys, 2015; Moussa & Koester, 2021; Kano State Ministry of Science, Education and Technology, 2018). Less than half of children have access to an English or math textbook, and only about 13% have access to a local language textbook (NPC & RTI International, 2016).

The intervention seeks to address some of those gaps through the dissemination of Hausa literacy and mathematics materials as well as comprehensive teacher trainings on both pedagogy and the PLANE resources. PLANE math and Hausa literacy materials include Teachers Guides and Pupil Books. These materials were developed with an understanding of international frameworks that provide important guidance on content, cognitive skills, and instructional strategies while aligning strictly to the Nigerian National Primary Curriculum. Both Teacher Guides and Pupil Books are contextually appropriate and build on the successes of previous interventions in Nigeria to create a comprehensive materials package that supports both teacher and learner needs in the local language of instruction.

To better understand the extent to which the intervention is helping to catalyze educational change, we employ a quasi-experimental design to identify the causal impacts of the PLANE intervention on student learning outcomes based on a sample of 220 schools. Program implementation takes place at the district-level within each state, whereby some districts receive the intervention, and some do not, while districts are selected non-randomly following decisions made jointly between the program and the state ministries of education. To that end, we use a spatial regression discontinuity (SRD) design as the empirical strategy to estimate intervention effects in the absence of a randomized treatment assignment. The SRD is an evaluation methodology that uses geographic distances or locations as the basis for assignment to the intervention. In this case, the LGA borders represent sharp cutoffs for the implementation of PLANE whereby one side of the border is implementing PLANE while the other is not. This methodology, on aggregate, relies on the notion that schools and students tend be similar on either side of the border yielding an evaluation design that mimics the properties of a randomized controlled trial around the implementing district borders.

Preliminary results, including a baseline and endline spanning the 2022-23 academic year, will be presented at CIES 2024 detailing the effects of the PLANE early literacy and numeracy model after its first year of implementation.

Authors

• Wael S Moussa, FHI 360

• Elizabeth Adelman, FHI 360

• Rachel M Hatch, FHI 360