All Children Learning Quarterly Report January–March 2020

The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the USAID/Cambodia mission. The activity is led by Claire Wyatt, with subcontractors including World Education, Room to Read, and Save the Children. The geographic focus of the project is Cambodia. The project was launched in 2017 as the All Children Reading–Cambodia project, with the goal of improving early grade reading skills in Cambodia. The project was designed to complement the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport's (MoEYS) activities planned under a grant from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). The project aimed to support the development and piloting of the Khmer language component of a national early grade learning (EGL) program in five provinces. The MoEYS, with support from other partners, would develop the mathematics component of the EGL program. In September 2018, additional resources were made available through the USAID/Cambodia–All Children Learning award to enable the MoEYS to implement the EGL program in additional schools and to build MoEYS capacity to scale up the program. The project activities draw from both funding sources, with the same overall goal of increasing learning outcomes in the early grades. The project is referred to as All Children Reading–Cambodia externally, to build on the work done so far to establish relationships and understanding of USAID's contribution to the sector. The project is assisting the MoEYS, its development partners, and nongovernmental organizations to develop a more harmonized approach to early grade reading. It is helping to coordinate and support the development of a rigorous, practical, scalable, and inclusive intervention for Khmer language for upper-pre-school and grades 1 and 2. The project is designed to directly fund implementation of the EGL program in additional schools and to build MoEYS capacity to scale up the program. Implementation progress for the quarter January to March 2020 is reported in the quarterly progress report. The report highlights accomplishments in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2020, including the development of tools to improve inclusive, evidence-based early grade literacy instruction. The report also notes strengthened partnerships that promote collaboration, coordination, and synergies between partners supporting inclusive early grade learning. The report highlights three key results: the MoEYS has the tools to improve inclusive, evidence-based early grade literacy instruction; strengthened partnerships that promote collaboration, coordination, and synergies between partners supporting inclusive early grade learning; and the MoEYS is supported to develop and implement a plan for piloting and scaling up a coordinated and harmonized, inclusive, evidence-based MoEYS national EGL program that is feasible, practical, and scalable. The report also notes changes in key personnel and reallocation of level of effort, as well as activity project management support. The report includes annexes that provide additional information, including a success story, international travel plans for upcoming quarters, progress by indicator, and a timeline of activities.