Evaluation of espacios para crecer (EpC), an afterschool program, in Nicaragua : final report

EpC facilitators were trained on methods, techniques and activities to facilitate learning and create a positive social environment, to support social development and academic leveling, and to assess and provide differentiated responses to meet children’s individual needs. EpC are an important component of a larger project implemented in the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua called Community Action for Reading and Security (CARS). A two-arm randomized control trial was used to examine impact of the EpC intervention on children’s reading skills. In the treatment group, children were exposed to the EpC intervention; and in the control group, children were not exposed to EpC afterschool activities. Treatment and control group participants could have been exposed to other activities offered by CARS, such as education program for parents and community engagement activities aiming to spur community discussions around education. A distinguishing feature of this evaluation is that we randomly assigned—children or communities—to the treatment or control group depending on the size of the community. In larger communities (with more eligible children), we randomly assigned children. In communities with fewer children, it was not possible to form two separate groups, so the communities were the unit of random assignment, with all children in the community assigned together to the treatment or control group. The evaluation followed two cohorts of students for approximately one and a half years of exposure to the EpC program. We collected base-year data to measure children’s literacy skills, but could do so only in one of the cohorts and, in some cases, after exposure to the intervention had already begun. We collected follow-up data for each cohort (in 2016 for Cohort 1 and in 2017 for Cohort 2). Evaluation findings show that that the experimental design worked well in small communities, but not as well in the larger ones, due to lower take-up of and compliance with the program. Findings show that in these small communities, EpC had positive impacts on children’s reading outcomes, but not on school attachment or social-emotional outcomes. Impacts were statistically significant for girls and for children who were out of school at intake, but not for boys and children who were already enrolled in school. Cost-effectiveness estimates for the EpC intervention ranged from $45, at steady state, to $358, including startup costs, per 0.1 standard deviations in literacy score improvement.