Mureke Dusome Quarterly Report for the Period July – September 2018

The project is being implemented by Save the Children and its partner organizations, namely Umuhuza and Urunana DC, through a phased approach, in all 30 districts of the country from January 2016 to January 2020. Mureke Dusome has been designed to contribute to the Rwandan Education Sector under the Government of Rwanda's national development priorities, whose strategic plan acknowledges the importance of developing lifelong reading habits and ensuring students develop the foundational skills needed to move from 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn' across all curriculum subjects. The goal of Mureke Dusome is to improve P1-P3 students' ability to read with fluency and comprehension by strengthening the capacity of school leadership to improve student literacy through school-community partnerships, increasing effective community and parental involvement to improve literacy skills, and fostering a culture of reading. These three interrelated results will improve the quality of school-community partnerships as well as community and home learning environments. The theory of change is that children learn to read better in these supportive conditions than if they are receiving classroom-based instruction alone. In order to strengthen the capacity of school leadership to improve student literacy, Mureke Dusome first worked in collaboration with the Rwanda Education Board (REB)-School Leadership and Management (SLM) unit to develop the National Standards for Parent-School Partnership (NSPSP). These standards served as the framework for the content for Head Teachers' (HTs) and School General Assembly Committee (SGAC) presidents' and vice presidents' self-study modules; Sector Education Officers (SEOs) lead HTs and SGAC presidents and vice presidents in these processes. After piloting these self-study modules in 12 districts, Mureke Dusome scaled up to the remaining 18 districts in the rest of the country in FY2018. The project has also focused on increasing effective community and parental involvement to improve literacy skills. This has been achieved through the development and implementation of a literacy communication campaign for social behavior change, mobilizing parents and the community to improve student literacy, promoting and incentivizing local initiatives for community literacy activities, and leveraging existing civic service bodies to support community literacy activities. Additionally, the project has fostered a culture of reading by enhancing the capacity of Rwanda Reads to support networking, coordination, and information sharing among literacy stakeholders, promoting and advocating literacy through Rwanda Reads, strategically strengthening the supply and demand for the local children's book industry, and increasing communities' access to age-appropriate, relevant reading materials. Mureke Dusome complements the classroom-based interventions of other USAID-funded education programs, namely Soma Umenye. The project has made significant progress in achieving its goals, with a focus on strengthening school leadership capacity, increasing community and parental involvement, and fostering a culture of reading. The project's results have been monitored and evaluated through a range of indicators, including improvements in student literacy outcomes, increased community and parental involvement, and enhanced school-community partnerships.