FY 2021 Quarterly Performance Report for USAID Let's Read Project

The project aims to improve reading outcomes for approximately 1.4 million children attending pre-primary through to Grades 3 and provide professional development for teachers to support reading interventions in Zambian public and community schools. The project is managed by the Education Development Centre (EDC) in partnership with VVOB, Resonance, and Kentalis. The project is designed to achieve two major results: IR 1 Public and Community Schools Performance Improved and IR 2 Ministry of Education Systems Strengthened. The project will seek to achieve the following four key objectives encompassing a number of activities: Objective 1: Reading Package Intervention, Objective 2: Meet the Metrics, Objective 3: Performance Tracking System, and Objective 4: Increase Parent, Community, and Private Sector Engagement. During the second quarter of 2021, the project was able to move ahead with most of the planned activities and meetings despite the delay in the start of the academic year due to the second wave of COVID-19. Meetings facilitated during this period included a meeting with the British Council to explore possible areas of collaboration, a meeting with the Teaching Council of Zambia to understand the operations of the Council, and a meeting with Zambia Open Community Schools and Reformed Open Community Schools to share lessons and opportunities to date. The project also conducted Early Childhood Education (ECE) teacher trainings for the remaining ECE teachers who could not be trained in January due to rising COVID-19 cases. A total of 508 new ECE teachers were trained. Additionally, the project held re-orientation meetings with District Reading Team members, met with the Directorate of Standards and Curriculum to discuss the status of activities agreed in FY 21, Q1, and facilitated observation of week 10 Standardised Literacy Assessments by Language Specialists from Curriculum Development Center. The project also conducted phone interviews on listenership survey in all five provinces on teacher tips, overall listenership seemed to be low as though 45.4% of the teachers surveyed indicated that they were aware of the radio programs, only 20% actually listened. Furthermore, the project trained temporary Data Entry Staff Students on Performance Tracking System (PTS) data entry protocol and formalized three partnerships with Prudential Zambia, Total Zambia, and the American Chamber of Commerce. The project's financial performance for the second quarter of 2021 is as follows: Planned LOP Funding ($): $48,995,538, Mortgage ($): $16,647,454, Obligations as of [date] ($): $32,348,084, Average monthly expenditures ($): $651,524.85, Accrued expenditures ($): $316,649.47, Pipeline ($): $2,824,420.35, and Pipeline months ($): April 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021.