Indonesia Creating Early Readers for Academic Success Programme: Endline report

Save the Children began its Literacy Boost Programme in 15 schools in Malaka District and Timor Tengah Utara (North Central Timor; abv TTU) district on Timor Island. The Literacy Boost Programme CERDAS (Creating Early Readers for Academic Success), is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), New Zealand. CERDAS has four expected outputs: 1) Improve learning environments, 2) Improve capacity of teachers through training and mentoring, 3) Increase community engagement through community action activities such as reading camps and parenting session, and 4) Establish a strong relationship with the government at different levels to mainstream the concept of the project into local policy. The endline assessment in both districts took place in the month of May 2017.

The key research questions to be explored in this report include:

1. At endline, how comparable are learners in CERDAS schools versus comparison schools in terms of reading skills, background characteristics, and home literacy environment?

2. What can the endline data tell us about learners’ emergent reading skills? What does this mean for Literacy Boost programming?

3. What was the impact of the CERDAS programme during the 9 months of program implementation from baseline to endline?

4. How do learners’ endline reading skills vary according to their backgrounds, home literacy environment, and other dimensions of equity? What does this mean for targeting the CERDAS program?