Overview
A growing consensus is emerging that global education outcomes need to shift from access to quality. Children in developing countries are attending school more than ever before, but are still not learning much once they are there. Key to improving quality learning outcomes is the attainment of meaningful literacy in early primary.
The Northern Uganda Literacy Project (NULP) is a local-language-first literacy intervention that was designed to meet this challenge. The program, which covers grades 1 to 3, overhauls the curriculum by providing revised teacher guides and textbooks as well as integrated teacher training and classroom support. In addition, specific gains in literacy achievement are currently being studied in a seven-year school-based randomized trial in the Lango sub-region of Uganda.
Results
NULP succeeded in substantially improving the teaching of literacy in early primary grades, ultimately resulting in children in Primary 3 in target schools obtaining meaningful and relevant reading and writing skills in Leblango and English. These results can be found here.
End of year testing demonstrated substantial reading gains for pupils in Primary 3 – far above pupils in non‐supported government schools and well above the results of other organizations operating similar programs in the Lango Sub‐region, including Research Triangle Institute and the Government of Uganda (GOU) under Global Partnership for Education funding.
Instruments and protocols
Documents and Surveys from the study have been made publicly available here.
RCT registry
The Northern Uganda Literacy Project is registered with the American Economic Association’s registry for randomized control trials here.