SoW - Endline Evaluation | Literacy Instruction Scale-Up Program in Jodhpur, Rajasthan

Organization Overview

Founded in 2000 on the belief that World Change Starts with Educated Children®, Room to Read is creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality through education. We are achieving this goal by helping children in historically low-income communities in developing literacy skills and a habit of reading, and by supporting girls as they build life skills to succeed in school and negotiate key life decisions. We collaborate with governments and other partner organizations to deliver positive outcomes for children at a scale. Room to Read has benefited more than 39 million children and has worked in 23 countries and in more than 182,000 communities, providing additional support through remote solutions that facilitate learning beyond the classroom. Room to Read aims to benefit 40 million children by 2025.

Room to Read India was established in 2003 and presently has programs in twelve states – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi NCR, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh.  We aim to make available educational opportunities and resources to more disadvantaged children in our mission to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy one child at a time.

Project Background

Room to Read has been working with the Government of Rajasthan since 2003, implementing its literacy program in 1,919 schools across nine districts. Room to Read's literacy program is a multi-faceted intervention that works with local governments, strengthening child literacy skills and reading habits in primary grades (1 to 5). The literacy program consists of three core components: (i) Instruction: reading and writing instruction in Hindi language for foundational phase children  (grades 1 to 3) (ii) Library: establishment of child-friendly school libraries providing access to quality materials to read inside and outside schools for all primary grade children (grades 1 to 5) and (iii) Quality Reading Materials (QRM) such as reading cards, for children. In May 2022, Room to Read partnered with the Indira Foundation for the project entitled “Literacy Instruction Scale-Up Program in Jodhpur, Rajasthan” to enhance literacy skills of the children in foundation phase in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan.

To support Grades 1 to 3 children and teachers, the instruction component of the literacy program provides: (i) supplementary reading materials to support the development of key reading and writing skills, (ii) a teacher’s guide containing easy to follow lesson plans and instructions for every lesson, and (iii)  professional development through training of the (a) teachers to improve their language instruction in classrooms, and (b) Panchayat Elementary Education Officers (PEEOs) to provide coaching and support to the teachers through regular school visits. Through the library component of the program, Room to Read establishes cluster libraries^[1] with variety of reading materials, and trains school personnel on how to best manage the library’s resources and facilitate reading activities with children. Through cluster libraries, children get access to a diverse collection of reading materials suitable for them. Moreover, cluster library offers variety of books, by a monthly books rotation system, which allows books to be exchanged among schools with the clusters. 

Study Objective

The Endline Evaluation (2025) of the Early Grade Literacy Skills (EGLS) assessment for Grade 3 children aims to measure the impact of literacy scale-up program intervention in Jodhpur district since its inception in 2023 (Baseline Evaluation). This study seeks to evaluate the progress in literacy outcomes of Grade 3 children, identifying shifts in their foundational literacy skills including reading fluency and comprehension.

The endline evaluation will enable Room to Read to assess the program's impact by comparing the following: (i) changes in reading skills of children from baseline to endline in intervention schools (Jodhpur district), and (ii) changes in reading skills of children from baseline to endline in comparison/control schools (Barmer district).

Requirements and Evaluation Criteria for Technical Proposal

• Organization with at least 5 years of experience in the field of education. Experience in foundational literacy assessments will be preferred.
• Technical proposals should not be more than 10-12 pages. The technical proposals must be submitted as per the prescribed format in Annex A below.
• Individual technical proposals will not be accepted for this study.
• The technical proposals will be evaluated based on the following (but not limited to):  (a) experience in Education field/similar domain and conducting similar studies; (b) suggested study team, including data collectors, supervisors, other technical members; along with their qualification and experience; (d) process and steps of data quality assurance, including data quality measures taken during the trainings for selection of the data collectors, data collection monitoring, troubleshooting mechanisms etc; (e) understanding of the scope of work; (c) training and data collection plan; (f) timelines of sub-activities as per main activities listed in Table 3.

HOW TO APPLY

Proposals are invited from the interested agency for the above assignment and the last date for receiving the proposal is 28^th Oct 2024 at procurement.india@roomtoread.org  [do not copy anyone from RtR]

Kindly submit two separate emails with the following subject lines:

o EMAIL (1): TECHNICAL PROPOSAL – Endline Evaluation

o EMAIL (2): FINANCIAL PROPOSAL – Endline Evaluation

Submission terms:

• All agencies are advised to thoroughly review the SoW ToR before applying.
• Technical and Financial proposals are to be shared in two different emails separately and not in a single email (mandatory)
• Incomplete applications or deviations from the prescribed process will result in automatic rejection.
• Proposals received after the prescribed deadline will not be considered.
• Only shortlisted agencies will be contacted and may be requested for face-to-face/online interaction/presentation.

For queries, please contact:

Vivek Shrawat

vivek.shrawat@roomtoread.org

To download the full SoW, click here

Tags Education and Education Technology (edtech) Research