Development and Evaluation of the Lao Child Literacy Development (CLD) Pilot
Since the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, there have been rapid increases in school enrollment around the world, but despite these advances, many countries still face a learning crisis (UNESCO, 2013). Approximately 250 million children worldwide are unable to read a single word, even after attending school for several years (World Development Report, 2018). In Laos in particular, only 8% of students in Grade 3 and about one-half the children in Grade 5 read with high levels of comprehension, and the percentage of nonreaders was significantly higher for non-Lao-speaking children.
To address the critical gaps, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) developed, implemented, and evaluated the Child Literacy Development (CLD) pilot project in two districts in Laos for the 2017–18 school year. This report describes both the conceptual development of the toolkit and the results of a qualitative evaluation of the toolkit’s usability, implementation fidelity, and perceived impact.