Impact Evaluation Report: Malawi Catch-Up Clubs & CVA: Impact of Cash on Learning Outcomes

Save the Children implemented a Catch-up Club (CuC) project, funded by the Swedish Postcode Lottery (SPL), in 20 schools in Lilongwe, Malawi. CuCs are a short-term, data-driven intervention to build foundational skills in literacy, numeracy and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), during learning disruptions, as seen with the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted education for over 1.6 billion children, including 8 million in Malawi. CuCs are also beneficial beyond the COVID-19 pandemic or context as they can be implemented wherever children are experiencing learning losses. The project provided remedial education, layered with child protection support for at-risk children, and cash and voucher assistance (CVA) to economically vulnerable families.  Child protection and CVA are integrated with the education and SEL components of CuCs to address protection, social and economic barriers to learning that may affect children’s participation in the clubs and school. There remain gaps in evidence both at the global and at country level on the impact of CVA on child learning outcomes. Hence this study is to build evidence on the effect of the cash on primary school learner attendance and learning outcomes, which will inform Save the Children’s programming particularly in program design.