Assessing holistic learning outcomes throughout the educational life cycle: Lessons from crisis-affected communities in Syria

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Assessments in education in emergencies (EiE) programs have traditionally focused on access, safety, and resources, neglecting to prioritize children's learning outcomes. Restricted resources, low teacher capacity, and a lack of national data perpetuate limited understanding of displaced and emergency-affected children's learning needs, impeding the effectiveness of EiE programs. While newer crisis-sensitive tools attempt to integrate various aspects of emergencies, such as the Rapid Education and Risk Analysis Toolkit, they often neglect to incorporate learning assessments. Additionally, the existing assessments’ administration is often time-consuming and logistically challenging in complex emergency situations, leading to suboptimal data quality. The INEE Measurement Library is one resource that aims to fill this gap, but among the measures shared on that platform, there is no tool including literacy, numeracy, and social and emotional learning (SEL) for children ages 4 to 12 that has been tested across diverse displacement contexts. The lack of focus on holistic learning and development in EiE assessments, coupled with restricted resources and logistical difficulties, has hindered EiE program effectiveness, particularly given children’s diverse skills upon reenrollment in education after displacement or school closures. However, EiE programming has undergone a notable shift from an emphasis on access to education towards prioritizing quality learning and well-being to mitigate crises’ effects.
Children and youth experiencing displacement have often missed out on months or years of education, with some children and youth never having enrolled in school at all. In these contexts, non-formal education, accelerated learning programs, basic literacy and numeracy programs, and other programs supplement gaps in children’s learning and support formal education re-enrollment. Non-formal programs are often fit-for-purpose, designed, adapted, and/or tailored for children and youth in specific locations. Rarely do program implementers have existing placement tests that are appropriate to identify which level in the NFE program that they should enroll students and given educational interruptions students have wide and varied skills, regardless of age.
Compounding learning and development challenges, national and non-formal curricula often overlook the inclusion of social and emotional skills, which are valuable for all children and particularly crucial for those who have experienced adversity and crises. The emphasis on psychosocial aspects in EiE programming necessitates the development of more comprehensive assessments that measure learning outcomes holistically. SEL is an integral component of psychosocial well-being, promoting broader learning and preventing the exacerbation of psychosocial issues. However, despite the significance of literacy, numeracy, SEL, and psychosocial support within EiE programming, there are limited options available for measuring their outcomes. To enhance the effectiveness of EiE programs, it is crucial to prioritize comprehensive and contextually relevant assessments that capture children's learning needs. This requires leveraging innovative approaches and data collection methods that are feasible, appropriate, and contextualized for emergency contexts.
This panel specifically focuses on feasible, appropriate and contextual holistic learning assessments in Syria. Given ongoing conflict since 2011, divided governance between the Syrian government in Damascus and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), and ongoing insecurity, the education system throughout the region has been disrupted. The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 earthquake that impacted the northern governorates compounded educational disruptions. Given these multifaceted crises, International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with Education Cannot Wait (ECW), developed programming to support the education system and minimize the impact of ongoing educational disruptions. The Syria ECW Multi-Year Resilience Program (MYRP) implemented by Save the Children and UNICEF aims to provide equitable access to safer and inclusive learning spaces for vulnerable children in Syria, focusing on foundational, socio-emotional, and vocational skills. This panel presents experiences in measuring learning in non-formal education programming in Syria using placement tests, pre and post-tests, summative sample-based assessments and formative assessments in similar programming.
To respond to these challenges within the MYRP, researchers and practitioners have developed placement, formative, and summative assessment tools. In this panel, four presenters will explore holistic measurement in the MYRP that aims to support crisis-affected children throughout Syria.
Specifically, Ms. Rasha Rayes presents the assessment strategies designed by UNICEF and partners for the Accelerated Learning Program, for the Empowered Learning Program (self-learning), and for Remedial education. The assessment strategy reflects how reliable available tools were contextualized, mapped to the curriculum standards and leveraged to fit within a coherent and overarching strategy to inform on the quality of educational interventions and on individual children’s outcomes and needs.
Ms. Rayes presentation is followed by Dr. Claudine Rizkallah Aziz who presents the consultative process, and methodology adopted for designing and scaling valid and reliable placement tests in the Accelerated Learning Program, as well as placement tests, pretests and posttests for Out of School Children (OOSC) in the Empowered Learning Program and the remedial education. The presentation reveals how the process and its derivatives such as the test specifications documents and templates can serve as a global guide for constructing aligned assessment tools.
Ms. Abeer Al-Attari presents a formative assessment contextualization, adaptation and implementation with teachers in northeast and northwest Syria. The Holistic Assessment for Learning (HAL) uniquely measures literacy, numeracy and SEL skills of primary school-aged children in conflict- and post-conflict settings through a formative tool that teachers can operationalize directly in their teaching. HAL was developed and tested in 2018-2019. This Arabic holistic formative learning assessment aims to assess grade 2 and 3 students' skills in all regions in Syria. HAL focused on assessing basic skills, taking into account the educational interruptions and wide range of skills among children affected by displacement. The toolkit was designed to be simple and user-friendly, enabling grade 2 and 3 teachers to assess and understand the skills and needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and out-of-school children (OOSC) without formal records.
Lastly, Dr. Allyson Krupar presents the summative Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes’ (HALDO), a rapid measure of literacy, numeracy, SEL, and executive functioning skills of children 4 to 12 years old in EiE programs. This presentation will focus on summative learning outcomes across the programming presented by Ms. Rayes, Dr. Aziz, and Ms. Al-Attari.

Sub Unit

• Education in Conflict and Emergencies SIG

Organizer

• Allyson Krupar, Save the Children US

Chair

• Clara Pava, Save the Children

Individual Presentations

• Using the Holistic Assessment for Learning for formative assessment with Syrian teachers - Abeer Attari, Save The Children International

• Summative multi-dimensional learning evaluation in times of crises: Lessons from Syria - Allyson Krupar, Save the Children US