Impact evaluation for the USAID Aprender a Ler project in Mozambique: baseline report

This report presents the findings of baseline data collection conducted from second and third grade students in February/March 2013, at the beginning of the 2013 school year, in 180 schools located in the economic corridors of the Nampula and Zambézia provinces in Mozambique. Evidence-based information resulting from the Baseline Study, which lays the ground for the Impact Evaluation (IE), describes the current situation found in the participating schools and could inform USAID/Aprender a Ler (APAL) implementation, and hopefully influence future education policy decisions made by Ministry of Education in Mozambique (MINED). Assessments of student learning in the primary grades, such as the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) used in this Baseline Study, offer an opportunity to determine whether children are developing the fundamental skills upon which all other literacy skills build, and, if not, where efforts might be best directed. This is vital information for MINED to help guide the efforts to improve the quality of education in the early grades. The School Management Assessment (SMA) instrument administered in the schools sampled provides a multifaceted view of school and classroom characteristics traditionally associated with student performance. The findings and conclusions included in this report refer exclusively to a sample of 180 schools located in a set of randomly selected Zonas de Influência Pedagógica (ZIPs) along the economic corridors of the Nampula and the Zambézia provinces and should not be generalized to other schools in other areas of Mozambique. Additionally, data for the Baseline Study were collected at the beginning of the 2013 school year. Therefore, the EGRA scores reflect the performance of the randomly selected 1,798 second and 1,800 third graders at the beginning of second and third grades respectively.