Leveraging caregivers to provide high quality remote ECE: Findings from Lebanon and Iraq

• In Event: Jumpstarting primary school: Approaches to ECE for near-1st graders with no prior access

Proposal

COVID-19 highlighted the need for and potential benefits of remote service delivery: a need not limited to the pandemic. Families living near conflict, experiencing frequent migration, or settled in hard-to-access areas would all benefit from effective, remote program delivery. This study presents evidence as to the viability and effectiveness of remote, accelerated ECE programming for 5-6 year-olds with little to no prior ECE from a randomized controlled trial in Lebanon and subsequent pilot program in Iraq.


The remote early learning program (RELP) takes place via Whatsapp calls (2-3/week) with groups of 5-6 caregivers. Caregivers learn from teachers about child development and how to do ECE activities at home. Between calls, caregivers do activities with their children. The program aims to support child development and prepare children to enter in-person school.


In Spring 2022, we conducted a three-armed randomized controlled trial of RELP comparing RELP only (n = 514) and RELP plus a remote parenting support program (RPSP: n = 501) to a wait-list control group (n = 591). This evaluation was conducted in hard-to-access areas of Lebanon and consisted of 96% Syrian refugee families. Data came from caregiver surveys and a remote adaptation of IDELA (Pisani, Borisova, Dowd, 2018; Schwartz et al., 2022).


In comparing RELP only to the control, we found small to moderate effects on motor development and child play (0.21-0.29 effect size) and large, positive effects (0.36-0.52) on social-emotional, literacy, and numeracy skills as well as caregiver report of learning interactions. The addition of RPSP did not increase, and may have decreased, impacts. We found no impacts on other parenting measures or caregiver well-being. Notably, impacts did not vary by child gender, caregiver education/literacy, SES, nuclear vs extended family household, or baseline level of outcome variable.


Given the incredible promise of these findings, the IRC subsequently piloted RELP (without RPSP) in the Ninewa province of Iraq in summer 2023 with 600 families with children about to start first grade. All families are completing baseline and endline caregiver surveys (child play, parenting, caregiver well-being, household demographics) via audio calls and remote IDELAs through Whatsapp video calls.


In this presentation we will share the Lebanon impact evaluation and Iraq pilot findings side-by-side and discuss differences, similarities, and implications for future programming and research. Our findings in Lebanon demonstrated that remote ECE can work and that such programming is equally effective when caregivers have low levels of education. This suggests potential for a wide range of families. We are excited to see and present on how this program translates to Iraq.


Given little progress on SDG 4.2.2 (participation in ECE in the year before first grade: UNESCO, 2023), developing approaches to expand ECE access is urgent. We will discuss programmatic features that we think contributed to the success of this remote program (using findings from our embedded qualitative study); program resources/costs; study limitations; concerns and further opportunities identified in transferring the program to Iraq; and next steps for this work.

Authors

• Kate Schwartz, Global TIES for Children, New York University

• Duja Michael, NYU Global TIES for Children

• Lina Torossian, International Rescue Organization

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Global TIES for Children, New York University

• Somaia Abdulrazzak, Global TIES for Children, New York University

• Phoebe Sloane, International Rescue Committee

• Siwar Hashwe, International Rescue Committee

• Kimberly E Foulds, Sesame Workshop