Amid stubbornly high out-of-school rates and dismal learning levels for many children in sub-Saharan Africa, an education program in Liberia has offered hope after an evaluation showed its students made huge learning gains in just 10 months.
Pupils enrolled in the Luminos Fund’s intensive catch-up program for out-of-school children from marginalized communities could read three times more words per minute by the end of the program versus the control group, according to the results of a randomized controlled trial, or RCT, carried out by IDinsight.
Students progressed from reading an average of four words per minute at the start of the program to 29 by the end, compared to seven words per minute for children in the control group, according to the evaluation. This means children go from not recognizing all the letters in the alphabet to reading short stories.
About the author
Sophie Edwards
Sophie Edwards is a Devex Contributing Reporter covering global education, water and sanitation, and innovative financing, along with other topics. She has previously worked for NGOs, and the World Bank, and spent a number of years as a journalist for a regional newspaper in the U.K. She has a master's degree from the Institute of Development Studies and a bachelor's from Cambridge University.
