Assessment of the USAID Lao PDR Learn to Read Activity Baseline Report

In response to challenges facing students and teachers in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Save the Children (SC), and partners are implementing the Learn to Read (LtR) activity to improve Lao reading ability at the pre-primary, first-, and second-grade levels; improve classroom instruction; and strengthen community engagement and support for reading. SC contracted the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and our local partner, Indochina Research Laos (IRL), to lead a mixed-method study and assessment of the LtR activity and examine the change in students’ literacy outcomes over time. This report presents the results from the baseline round of the study to serve as a basis from which to examine these changes.

The baseline round of the LtR assessment was conducted between March and May 2021, however, quantitative data collection was disrupted due to the resurgence of COVID-19 in Lao PDR and resultant school closures and travel restrictions. Prior to these restrictions, our team was able to complete planned qualitative data collection in all provinces and all quantitative data collection in Xiengkhuang Province. We supplemented this partial quantitative data with other existing datasets to generate a proxy baseline of student literacy outcomes for the LtR program.