Return to Learning Midterm Report: Bekaa, Lebanon

The Return to Learning (RtL) program includes six weeks of content, two days a week, in non-formal learning environments. RtL aims to support continuous learning for those affected by violence and conflict and decrease the gap in time between displacement and access to learning opportunities in contexts of forced displacement. The Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes (HALDO) is a rapid response tool for use in contexts of emergency and displacement. HALDO was developed through the RtL program as a means to profile learner populations and evaluate program impact. HALDO provides program staff with a profile of the literacy, numeracy, social-emotional learning (SEL), and executive functioning (EF) skills of children 4-12 years of age. In emergencies, many children are arriving with diverse learning needs and experiences. The results of HALDO can be used to inform decision-making processes by generating evidence upon which to base education response priorities, policies, investments, and discussions with host communities and donors in the first phase of a response. Directly, HALDO informs facilitators in RtL classrooms about what skill levels children are achieving in aggregate by age group and center so that they can more accurately select learning content based on the assessment results.