Early Grade Reading Costing Templates and Guidance

With the advent of USAID’s Education Strategy (2011–2015) and its goal (Goal 1) of improved reading skills for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015, a growing number of early grade reading (EGR) interventions have been developed and implemented in USAID partner countries. USAID anticipates that this number will continue to grow. With this increased focus comes the increased attention to the costs associated with the specific program outcome, namely the cost of reading improvement at the child level. Taking a cue from improvements in data transparency and reporting in Global Health, Congressional representatives have begun to ask for estimates of the cost associated with getting a child to read; USAID mission staff want to know what it might cost to take an evidence-based EGR intervention to scale; and both USAID missions and host country government (HCG) staff want to know what it might cost to sustain an EGR intervention once taken to scale. Furthermore, USAID is keen to conduct a number of cost analyses regarding these interventions such as comparing the development costs to implementation costs, determining which phase of an EGR program is most expensive and why, examining various unit costs, and examining cost-effectiveness.